HAECCEITY

PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES SERIES

Founded by Wilfrid S. Sellars and Keith Lehrer

Editor:

KEITH LEHRER, University of Arizona

Board of Consulting Editors:

JONATHAN BENNETT, Syracuse University

ALLAN GIBBARD, University of Michigan

ROBERT STALNAKER, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

ROBERT G. TURNBULL, Ohio State University

VOLUME 57

GARYS. ROSENKRANTZ University of North Carolina at Greensboro

HAECCEITY An Ontological Essay

SPRINGER-SCIENCE+ BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rosenkrantz. Gary S. Haecceity an ontological essay I by Gary S. Rosenkrantz.

p. cm. -- (Philosophical studies seri'es ; v. 57> Includes bibliographical references (p. xxx-xxx) and indexes.

1. Haecceity (Philosophy) BD395.5.R67 1993 111--dc20

ISBN 978-90-481-4311-5

1. Title. II. Series.

Printed an acid-free paper

AH Rights Reserved

93-27789

© 1993 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Origina11y published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1993

Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover lst edition 1993

No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner-

ISBN 978-90-481-4311-5 ISBN 978-94-015-8175-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-8175-2

For my parents, Gerald and Hannah, with gratitude and love: without them my individual nature would be unconceived, unexpressed, and unexemplified.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE IX

CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTORY PRELIMINAIRES 1 I Haecceity: An Initial Account 1

II Qualitative and Nonqualitative Abstracta 6 III Controversies About Haecceities 11 IV Modal Concepts 16 V Cognitive and Linguistic Concepts 22

VI Haecceities and Individual Essences 42 VII Varieties of Realism and Anti-Realism 53

VIII The Concrete/ Abstract Distinction 56 IX Qualitative and Nonqualitative Properties 69

CHAPTER 2- THE PROBLEM OF INDIVIDUATION 72 I Metaphysical Explanations 72

II Qualitatively Indistinguishable Concreta 77 III Proposed Criteria of Individuation 82 IV Principles of Evaluation for the Proposed Criteria 93 V Evaluations of the Proposed Criteria 97

VI The Haecceity Criterion: Neither Trivial Nor Circular 106 VII Responses To A Priori Objections to Haecceity 124

VIII Haecceity: A Metaphysical Explanation of Diversity 130

CHAPTER 3 -HAECCEITIES AND NONEXISTENT POSSIBLE INDIVIDUALS 140 I The Individuation of NEPs 140

II The Individuation of Disjoint Objects 146 III Objections To Unexemplified Haecceities: A Reply 150 IV The Unity of Metaphysical Modalities 166

CHAPTER 4- SINGULAR REFERENCE AND UNEXEMPLIFIED HAECCEITIES 168 I Mereological Descriptions ofUnexemplified Haecceities 168

II Causal Descriptions of Unexemplified Haecceities 179

viii TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 5 -ACQUAINTANCE 184 I Haecceities and Acquaintance 184

II Haecceities and Re-identification 191 III An Argument for Premise 1 of R 196 IV An Argument for Premise 2 of R 198 V Synchronic Versions of R 204

VI Objections toR and its Analogs: A Rebuttal 214 VII Divine Cognition and Haecceities 220

VIII The Objects of Acquaintance 225 IX Objections to Russellian Objects of Acquaintance: A Response 236 X Cognitively Inaccessible Haecceities 241

INDEX OF NAMES 245

INDEX OF SUBJECTS 24 7

PREFACE

Philosophical discussions of haecceity or "thisness" give rise to a number of controversies. One of these controversies concerns whether or not there are haecceities or "thisnesses". This controversy over the existence of such attributes is pertinent to a body of contemporary research in metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of language, including analytic investiga­tions of Identity and Individuation, Modality and Possible Worlds, Proposi­tional Attitudes, De Re Belief, and Names. For example, philosophers who accept the existence of haecceities have advanced the following claims. ( 1) Haecceities provide a criterion of identity across possible worlds for particulars. 1 (2) De re necessity can be understood in terms of de dicta necessity because individuals have haecceities.2 (3) De re belief can be analyzed in terms of de dicta belief because individuals have haecceities. 3

(4) A person, S, grasps his own haecceity when he has a piece of self­knowledge expressible in first-person language, and S cannot identify an external thing, x, unless S uniquely relates x to himself in such a way that S grasps his own haecceity.4 (5) In some contexts, haecceities of particulars are intensions of indexical expressions or proper names. 5

Of course, philosophers who deny that particulars have haecceities reject (1)-(5). Typically, these philosophers argue either that the notion of such a haecceity is obscure, or that haecceities of this kind are peculiar entities, or

1See Robert Adams, "Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity," The Journal of Philosophy, 76 (1979), pp. 5-26.

2See Alvin Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1974).

3See Roderick Chisholm, Person and Object: A Metaphysical Study (La Salle: Open Court, 1976), Chapter 1, and Appendix C.

4Roderick Chisholm, Person and Object, Chapter 1, and Appendix C.

5See M. Lockwood "Identity and Reference" in M. Munitz, ed., Identity and Individuation (New York: New York University Press, 1971), pp. 199-211, and "On Predicating Proper Names," The Philosophical Review, 84 (1975), pp. 471-498. Also see Roderick Chisholm, Person and Object, Chapter 1; and Nathan Salmon, Reference and Essence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981 ), pp. 21-22.

IX

X PREFACE

that it is metaphysically extravagant to think that particulars have haeccei­ties.6

This book has three goals. First, to vindicate the thesis that particulars have haecceities. Second, to solve certain metaphysical, epistemological, and linguistic problems about haecceities. Third, to use premises about haecceities to justify a rare and very special variety of Extreme Realism about abstract entities.

Chapter 1 is introductory in nature, and provides the groundwork for accomplishing the three aforementioned goals. Preliminary discussions of major topics are coupled with elucidations of key metaphysical, epistemo­logical, and linguistic concepts, including the concept of haecceity. Philosophical analyses of two distinctions which are central to this project are provided, the first being the distinction between concreta and abstracta, and the second being the distinction between qualitative abstracta and nonqualitative abstracta.

Chapter 2 examines the metaphysical problem of explaining the diversity of individuals at a time, or of providing a criterion of individuation for particulars, given the possibility of two qualitatively indistinguishable individuals. It is argued that the solution to this problem implies that particulars have haecceities.

Chapter 3 provides justification for the controversial claim that there are unexemplified haecceities which have necessary existence and which could be exemplified by particulars.

Chapter 4 argues for a somewhat surprising thesis: that we can pick out or identify some of the aforementioned unexemplified haecceities, and use definite descriptions of a certain kind to denote or make singular reference to them.

Chapter 5 advances an epistemological argument which has three

6See Roderick Chisholm, "Objects and Persons: Revisions and Replies," Grazer Philosophische Studien, 7/8 (1979), pp. 317-388, The First Person (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), and "Possibility without Haecceity," in Peter A. French, Theodore E. Uehling, and Howard K. Wettstein, eds., Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 11, Studies in Essentialism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986), pp. 157-164. Also see Ernest Sosa, "Propositions and Indexical Attitudes" in H. Parret, ed., On Believing: Epistemological and Semiotic Approaches (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1983), pp. 316-332.

PREFACE Xl

interesting implications. (1) There are some haecceities which no one is capable of grasping or expressing linguistically, for instance, haecceities of objects which are incapable of consciousness. (2) In some cases a haecceity can be grasped or expressed linguistically by one and only one person, for example, your haecceity can only be grasped or expressed linguistically by you. (3) There are some haecceities which can be grasped or expressed linguistically by many persons, for instance, the haecceity of a sharable characteristic such as Squareness.

Some prefatory remarks about my approach to ontology and the relation­ship of this approach to the ontological problems dealt with in this essay will perhaps be helpful to the reader. Although I will defend a form of platonic realism, my conception of ontology is fundamentally aristotelian in nature. According to such a conception, ontology is a "first science" which studies fundamental categories of being or existence, otherwise known as ontological categories. There are two main branches of ontology: speculative ontology, and analytic ontology.7 Speculative ontology attempts to ascertain what kinds of entities exist. It asks, for example, whether or not there are instances of ontological categories such as Substance, Event, Place, Time, Collection, Property, Relation, Proposition, and Number. Analytic ontology, on the other hand, attempts to give an account of what features various kinds of entities must have: it seeks to provide conceptual or philosophical analyses of ontological categories, without commitment as to whether or not there are instances of those categories.

Accordingly, analytic ontology concerns itself with the nature of the more fundamental categories of concreta, for example, Substance, Event, Place, and Time, the nature of the more fundamental categories of abstracta, for instance, Property, Relation, Proposition, and Number, and the nature of any necessary interrelationships which hold among any of these categories. Speculative ontology, however, is concerned with whether or not there exist concreta or abstracta belonging to such categories.

7This distinction was drawn by D. C. Williams in his Principles of Empirical Realism (Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas Publisher, 1966), p. 74. In a similar vein, Brian Carr has recently distinguished between categorial description and categorial realism. See Carr's Metaphysics: An Introduction (Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press International, 1987), Chapter 1.

Xll PREFACE

Problems belonging to each of these branches of ontology shall be investigated in this essay. I will argue that the notions of Concrete Entity and Abstract Entity can be analyzed in terms of a hierarchy of ontological categories related to one another as species and genus. Such an argument is an instance of analytic ontology. I shall also argue that there are abstract properties, including both universals and haecceities of concreta. Here we have a piece of speculative ontology.

Standard arguments given in support of Abstract Property-Realism include the following. First, sharable properties have been posited on the ground that they are part of the best explanation of one or more of the following six phenomena. (1) There being a number of concrete items which are of the same kind, for instance, numerous particulars which are white. (2) A person's having the ability to perceive that a number of concrete items are of the same kind. (3) A predicate's denoting numerous concrete items which are of the same kind. ( 4) The existence of a necessary truth such as if something is red, then it is colored. (5) The fact that there are nonactual possibilities like there being a purple horse. (6) The existence oflogical and mathematical truths, for example, that all men being mortal is validly inferable from all men being animals and all animals being mortal, and that 7+5=12, respectively. Second, sharable properties have been postulated on the ground that there are truths about such properties, for instance, some shapes are never exemplified, or Honesty is a virtue, whose import cannot be adequately captured by any nominalistic translation.

For most philosophers, the question of the existence of haecceities arises, if at all, only after the existence of sharable properties or universals like Triangularity, Catness, and Redness has been accepted. When confronted by this question, many philosophers decline to postulate haecceities of concreta, whether they be "thisnesses" of inanimate entities or ego-centric properties such as being identical with me. Such a postulation is often viewed with deep suspicion because it appears to be unparsimonious, and indeed the charge of ontological profligacy is one that has been leveled against Property-Realism of any sort. My own argument is an attempt to show that, on the contrary, it is necessary to posit haecceities of concrete entities in order to explicate the state of affairs of two concreta's being diverse at a time.

PREFACE Xlll

The argument I present entails a radical or "giraffe" realism of properties. This radical realism not only implies that there are universals or sharable attributes, but implies that for any concrete entity, a, a has a haecceity, an irreducibly nonqualitative property or "thisness" of being identical with a. Haecceities of concrete entities are postulated on the ground that they are part of the best explanation of two concrete entities' being diverse at a time. Utilizing the premise that concrete entities have haecceities, I proceed to argue that there are unexemplified haecceities. According to my argument, some of these unexemplified haecceities are not equivalent to a conjunction of exemplified properties, and others of them are equivalent to such a conjunction. These conclusions are accepted on the ground that they are part of the best explanation of the fact that the number of individuals which could exist is greater than the number of individuals which do exist. Finally, I argue that many nonqualitative haecceities cannot be grasped by any of us, but that some of these haecceities can be picked out by us. This last argument has four noteworthy implications. First, a haecceity of an essen­tially nonconscious being is necessarily ungraspable. Second, an unexempli­fied haecceity cannot be grasped by us. Third, some unexemplified haecceities which are equivalent to a conjunction of exemplified properties can be picked out by us. Fourth, an unexemplified haecceity which is not equivalent to a conjunction of exemplified properties cannot be picked out by us.

My overall argument implies an extreme realism of properties via an inference to the best explanation of the diversity of concrete entities. As far as I am aware, this is a hitherto untraveled route to Property-Realism.

A number of acknowledgements are in order. I am indebted to my colleague (and erstwhile collaborator on other projects) Joshua Hoffman. He has helped me in writing this book in a myriad of ways, not least of which in providing difficult objections for me to attempt to surmount. I would also like to thank my teacher Roderick Chisholm, who is the source of my interest in the topic ofHaecceity. Many ofthe leading ideas in this book are present in an earlier form in my doctoral dissertation Individual Essences, Browri University, 1976, written under the direction of Roderick Chisholm, Ernest Sosa, and James Van Cleve. In addition, I would like to express my gratitude to Arnold Cusmariu for his encouragement and helpful observa-

XIV PREFACE

tions. I benefitted significantly, as well, from the criticisms and suggestions for improvements proposed by an anonymous referee who reviewed an earlier draft of this book for Kluwer academic publishers. Thanks are also due to an anonymous referee who reviewed a manuscript containing some related material for Cambridge University Press, namely, my and Joshua Hoffman's Substance Among Other Categories: A Conceptual Investigation. Finally, I wish to thank the Research Council of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for supporting my work on this project during a leave in the spring of 1987.

I have incorporated parts of the following articles of mine: "Acquain­tance," Philosophia, 14 Nos. 1-2 (1984), pp. 1-23; "Nonexistent Possibles and Their Individuation," Grazer Philosophische Studien, 22 (1984), pp. 127-14 7; "Haecceities and Perceptual Identification," Grazer P hilosophische Studien, 9 (1979), pp. 107-119; "On Objects Totally Out Of This World," Grazer Philosophische Studien, 25/26 (1985/1986), pp. 197-208; with Joshua Hoffman, "The Independence Criterion of Substance," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 51 (1991), pp. 835-853; also with Joshua Hoffman "J. Rudner Boscovich" and "Mereology" in Robert Audi, ed., The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming); "Concrete/Abstract" in Jaegwon Kim and Ernest Sosa, eds., Companion to Metaphysics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1993); and "Critical Notice: The Nature of God: An Inquiry into Divine Attributes by Edward Wierenga," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 51 (1991), pp. 725-728. I would like to thank the editors of Philosophia, Grazer Philosophische Studien, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Basil Blackwell, and Cambridge University Press for kindly allowing me to include this material.

Greensboro, North Carolina 1993