English

Adjective

haecceitistic

1. (philosophy) Of or pertaining to haecceitism.
   • 1975 November 6, David Kaplan, “How to Russell a Frege–Church”, in The Journal of Philosophy, volume 72, number 19, DOI:10.2307/2024635, JSTOR 2024635, page 723:

     Probably, most of us are Haecceitists with respect to most things through time, but the very inaccessibility of other possible worlds seems to have produced a goodly number of Anti-Haecceitists with respect to trans-world identifications. Even when their quantified modal logics look Haecceitistic, their pre-systematic remarks may explain the so-called identities as a manner of speaking.

   • 1989, Christopher Hughes, On a Complex Theory of a Simple God: An Investigation in Aquinas' Philosophical Theology, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, ISBN 978-0-8014-1759-7, page 202:

     [T]here are no clear actual cases of individual substances discernible only with respect to relational and haecceitistic properties. On the other hand, there do seem to be pairs of possible individuals which differ only with respect to such properties. Max Black has argued that there is a possible universe containing only two qualitatively indiscernible brass spheres. These spheres will have the same mass, shape, color; be made of the same kind of stuff; and so on. But they will differ with respect to spatial relational properties involving the haecceity of what they're made of, such as being made of this matter, as well as differing with respect to purely haecceitistic properties like being this and impurely haecceitistic properties like being this brass sphere. If, as seems plausible, there are possible universes of the sort Black envisions, then there are individuals that cannot be distinguished save relationally or haecceitistically.

   • 2003, Gordon Belot, “Notes on Symmetries”, in Katherine Brading; Elena Castellani, editors, Symmetries in Physics: Philosophical Reflections, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-82137-7, page 410:

     Well, the existence of spacetime points is closely tied up with questions of counting of possibilities – so they are vulnerable to elimination in the transition from a haecceitistic means of counting to an anti-haecceitistic one. But in the case of particles we have much more to hang on to.

   • 2003, John Hawthorne, “Identity”, in Michael J. Loux; Dean W. Zimmerman, editors, The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-825024-1, page 107:

     […] One might wonder whether if x and y share every 'non-haecceitistic property', then x and y are identical (where haecceitistic properties — such as being identical to John or being the daughter of Jim — are those which, in some intuitive way, make direct references to a particular individual(s)). One may be so interested because one thinks that there are not, strictly speaking, haecceitistic properties in reality […] ; but even if one tolerates haecceitistic properties, one might think it an interesting metaphysical question whether the restricted thesis is true.

   • 2011, Mark Johnston, Surviving Death, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-13013-2, page 115:

     Many philosophers would admit that there can be purely haecceitistic differences at the level of simples, that is, entities that are not compounds of other entities. Suppose we have two simple particles, call them "Sam" and "Pam." Then, these philosophers would say, there really are distinct possibilities that simply turn on the numerical difference between Sam and Pam, for example, two really distinct possibilities of the following sort. […] Suppose, then, that one admits purely haecceitistic differences between simple particles. The thing to see is that there remains no basis for allowing further purely haecceitistic differences among the sets or sums or complexes or wholes made out of them. That is what undermines bare haecceitism about bodies.

   • 2013, Caspar Hare, The Limits of Kindness, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-969199-9, pages 154 and 156:

     My first argument appeals to the role that haecceitistic considerations (considerations to do with identity across states of affairs) play in shaping Mary's preferences. […] I ask her which she prefers, and she replies "I don't know. You have not told me enough about the states of affairs. You have told me, in glorious detail, all the qualitative facts about them, but I need to know some further, irreducibly haecceitistic facts about them in order to know which I prefer. These irreducibly haecceitistic facts matter to me." […] Decent people do not care about merely haecceitistic differences between states of affairs without grounds for so caring.

Related terms

• haecceitic
• haecceitism
• haecceitist
• haecceitistically
• haecceity