Abstract
According to haecceitism, some maximal possibilities differ even while they are qualitatively indiscernible. Since haecceitism is a modal thesis, it is typically defended by appeal to conceivability arguments. These arguments require us to conceive of qualitatively indiscernible possibilities that differ only with respect to the identity of the individuals involved. This paper examines a series of conceivability arguments for haecceitism and a variety of anti-haecceitist responses. It concludes that there is no irresistible conceivability argument for haecceitism even while anti-haecceitist responses do come with certain notable commitments.
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Notes
On the distinction between qualitative and non-qualitative properties, see Adams (1979) and Cowling (2015a). In what follows, I assume haecceities exist. Some views might draw the distinction between qualitative and non-qualitative possibilities without appeal to haecceities (e.g., by relying on some notion of individual-dependent possibilities).
On maximal possibilities, see Stalnaker (1987).
On some views, the relation of inclusion is entailment, since possibilities are identical with propositions. On a nearby view, inclusion is understood set-theoretically, since possibilities are just sets of propositions. In what follows, we can remain neutral between these frameworks, but, on ersatzism and its varieties, see Lewis (1986), Adams (1981), Forrest (1986), and Sider (2002).
Possibility anti-haecceitists include Dasgupta (2009), Forbes (1985) and Robinson (1989), while possible world anti-haecceitism, introduced below, is more widespread and endorsed by Lewis (1986) and Sider (2002). In defining haecceitism and in presenting some of the arguments below, I follow Cowling (2015b) but go beyond that discussion to consider the merits of the relevant conceivability arguments for haecceitism as well as the space of anti-haecceitist responses.
I leave open broader issues about the general taxonomy of arguments for haecceitism. For example, “Chisholm’s Paradox,” which is discussed but not endorsed in Chisholm (1967), might reasonably be counted as a conceivability argument. That said, its sorites-driven structure makes it worth treating as a somewhat separate case. For discussion, see Salmon (1986) and Lewis (1986, pp. 220–247). Since my focus will be on direct conceivability arguments, I leave open whether certain arguments that appeal to the nature of content, probability, or other notions are properly counted as conceivability arguments. See, e.g., Stalnaker (2008, pp. 69–71) and Kment (2012).
While I draw on several of the arguments briefly mentioned in Cowling (2015b), this discussion also evaluates the merits of these arguments, the nature of imagination involved, and the prospects for a comprehensive anti-haecceitist response.
On the Cartesian distinction between conceivability as a kind of pure understanding and imaginability as a sort of degenerate internal sense, see Gendler and Hawthorne (2002).
These rough distinctions follow those drawn in Chalmers (2002), but, unlike Chalmers, I leave aside issues regarding primary and secondary conceivability. These issues come into play in accounting for the singular content of our imaginings, but we can usefully hold the descriptivist/anti-descriptivist debate in check here.
Thanks here to anonymous referee for a useful point of clarification.
Lewis’ rejection of possible world haecceitism is a complicated matter and owes largely to his commitment to the supervenience of de re representation upon qualitative character. That said, since Lewis endorses possibility haecceitism, he allows that a given world represents a plurality of maximal possibilities that differ only haecceitistically from one another. Notably, such a view does not require possible world haecceitism. Additionally, Lewis is agnostic about whether there are qualitatively indiscernible worlds. On Lewisian haecceitism, see Cowling (2012), Fara (2009), Russell (2013), Skow (2009), and Sider (2002).
I have in mind here modalists who reject possible worlds but hold that some total ways things could have been are distinct yet qualitatively indiscernible. On modalism, see Melia (2003).
I assume duplicates share all of their intrinsic qualitative properties, while qualitatively indiscernible individuals share all of their intrinsic and extrinsic qualitative properties.
For simplicity’s sake, I assume that maximal possibilities can “include” individuals by way of including the possibility that they exist.
See Kripke (1980, pp. 103–104, 141–150). For Kripke, modal illusion occurs, roughly, when an individual imagines a “qualitatively identical epistemic situation” to her actual one, where the meanings of terms fixed by description pick out different individuals or properties than they actually do. The precise features of modal illusion are a matter of some controversy, but, as with the present notion of “modal delusion,” it shows a kind of epistemic insensitivity to singular content and the primary role that qualitative (or, as I discuss later, experiential content) plays in forming our modal beliefs. For discussion of “textbook Kripkeanism”, see Yablo (2005). For a dissenting interpretation, see Byrne (2006). See also Soames (2006), Gendler and Hawthorne (2002) on the nature of modal illusion.
Haecceitists might object that anti-haecceitists violate plausible principles about plenitude. One such principle holds that, for any actual individual, there is a maximal possibility that contains only that individual. As a result, we should be able to “subtract” the rest of actuality and be left with different maximal possibilities—e.g., one involving Lois and another involving Lana. Against this response, anti-haecceitists can claim such principles are guides only to qualitative possibility and claim that, for any actual individual, there is indeed a maximal possibility that contains only a qualitative duplicate of that individual.
A natural way to clarify the inside-outside distinction is to identify inside contents with sets of centered possible worlds and outside contents with sets of (uncentered) possible worlds. While this is a helpful heuristic, it is unavailable at the moment, since the question of haecceitism is closely connected with whether we need to model inside contents as sets of worlds or as sets of centered worlds. On centered worlds, see Liao (2012). On centered contents, see Stalnaker (2008).
The connection between singular content and experiential content is a matter of no small controversy. On some views, sameness of experiential content will require sameness of singular content. Here, I assume that singular content can come apart from experiential content in various ways. I will also assume that experiential content is exhausted by qualitative content and, as such, our experiential content does not include the experience of haecceities or non-qualitative features. While contentious, our present project is to offer the best available defense of anti-haecceitism and, since these assumptions bolster the anti-haecceitist position, I take these assumptions to be dialectically appropriate here.
In a world of one-way eternal recurrence, your doppelgangers are duplicates of you, but not qualitatively indiscernible from you, since you differ regarding your distance from the first epoch. We could equally well focus on a world of two-way recurrence where your doppelgangers are qualitatively indiscernible from you, but this would incur technicalities about naming epochs.
A similar case might draw upon a revised version of the Two Gods case from Lewis (1979). But, where Lewis’ gods differ qualitatively, an analogue of the present cases requires the gods to be qualitatively indiscernible and to have qualitatively indiscernible experiences.
Any argument that invokes inside imagination has a corresponding version that invokes outside imagination, but not conversely. Perhaps, however, one might accept the possibility of idealist worlds of “pure subjectivity” that have no imaginable general content and can therefore be imagined exclusively from the inside. But, then again, perhaps not. On idealism and inside imagination, see Peacocke (1985).
Essentialists of an especially strict sort might deny that you could possibly inhabit eternal recurrence worlds in the first place. Such views will, of course, require strict and difficult to motivate constraints on essence, but faced with the lurking arbitrariness, they look more plausible here than elsewhere. On this point, thanks to an anonymous referee.
Bricker (2007, p. 130).
On the impossibility of imagining our own nonexistence from the inside, see Nichols (2007).
As will be discussed below, there are competing views about the structure of the content of inside imagination. If we opt for a tripartite view, which distinguishes singular and experiential content as well as subject-centered content—i.e., whom one imagines being—this anti-haecceitist response to the Replacement Argument does presuppose that we can only imagine being ourselves. But, as I argue below, if we grant that we can imagine ourselves being some else altogether, anti-haecceitists can use the Modal Disassociation Strategy to undermine the Replacement Argument.
One might worry here that, since the relevant inside arguments involve imaginings from one’s own perspective, such arguments can succeed only in establishing haecceitistic possibilities for one’s self and not for others. For haecceitists, the natural response is that, if haecceitistic possibilities of any sort can be established, we can reason, on the basis of the non-arbitrary nature of modality, to other comparable haecceitistic possibilities. Alternatively, as we’ll see below, haecceitists can endorse a view of imagination that allow us to inside imagine being other individuals altogether. If that’s right, then there is no barrier to inside imagining haecceitistic scenarios concerning other individuals (though, as we’ll also see, this view of imagination opens the door to a powerful anti-haecceitistic response). Thanks to an anonymous referee here.
Lewis (1986, p. 231).
One might reasonably worry about the kind and origin properties of individuals on Adams’ globes, but it’s not hard to fill out the details of the Global Destruction Argument to address these concerns (e.g., by locating these events on a single highly symmetric planet with common biological origins). Alternatively, we could consider an inside imagined version of a case owing to Melia (1999, p. 650): “We could imagine a collection of bald philosophers, sitting in a circle. It is a law that one of them will grow a single hair. But, by the symmetry of the situation, any of the philosophers could be the lucky one. Again, our intuition is that there are many qualitatively isomorphic but distinct possibilities...”
On competing models of inside imagination and the distinction between imagining yourself being otherwise and imagining replacing someone altogether, see Kung (MS).
If you take it to be metaphysically impossible that you have a twin, it will turn out that the present argument for haecceitistic possibilities gives a notable pride of place to those with actual biological twins.
Russell (1912) defends a constraint on acquaintance and, in turn, propositional constituency that rules out individuals having other individuals—indeed, anything other than one’s self, sense data, or universals—as the contents of one’s thoughts. Such a constraint, applied to this tripartite view, would seem to require the fixed view in question. Here, I assume anti-haecceitists reject the constraint in question.
Anti-haecceitists of this sort take their inspiration from the assessment of Ramseyan Humility in Schaffer (2005), who holds Ramseyan Humility to be “external world skepticism writ small.”
Mackie (2009) accepts haecceitism and endorses a minimal essentialism that admits certain extreme haecceitist possibilities but holds that individuals have certain metaphysical features like their ontological category essentially. Kripke (1980) seems to accept haecceitism along with origin essentialism.
For those who find haecceitism more intuitively plausible than its property-theoretic analogue, quidditism, these findings offer a natural explanation of the difference in plausibility: the most compelling conceivability arguments for haecceitism are inside arguments, but no inside arguments can be offered in defense of quidditism, since only individuals but not properties can be imagined from the inside. On quidditism, see Black (2000) and Schaffer (2005).
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Cowling, S. Conceivability arguments for haecceitism. Synthese 194, 4171–4190 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-016-1136-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-016-1136-7