What is a Haecceity? (Metaphysics) 

Kind of refreshing to learn about a word that doesnt end with 'ism'

Platos Parmenides dealt with this problem in the dialectical dialog related to the notions of similarity and difference.

I've been reading Hegel's Phenomenonology of Geist recently, and I immediately noticed this parallel. Scotus's 'substance' = Hegel's 'thing' Scotus's 'haecceity' = Hegel's 'oneness'

If you think of an object as a set of properties - assuming no member of the set need persist in its membership - and you then remove all the members, haecceity is perhaps the unadorned set-ness or set-hood of it. Or, coming at it another way, if you wish to give an exhaustive analytic accounting of an object by listing all properties of that object, you still need a way to say, "And these properties are all instantiated in this thing," then you face the need for ostension. Haecceity is sort of a logical place-holder for the (sometimes impossible) act of pointing.

Please do a video on quiddities as well!

You could also tell us about haecceity's counterpart term "quiddity" and how they are different from one another

3:48 it does seem that haecceity describes a trait we were discussing before but frames it in a slightly nuanced manner perhaps

How does one differentiate haecceity and essence? Is it the case that haecceity is a necessary property of all, while an object may or may not have an essence?

2:29 what does haecceity say about rick and morty parallel universes and the portal gun?

I think identity needs to be entirely reframed in the way that Vsauce puts it, the Ship of Theseus was never the Ship of Theseus to begin with, metaphysical concepts only exist within the metaphysical and are haphazardly applied to reality in the same way that mathematics is.

I have thought about the problem of the possibility of two atoms alone ( the old philosophical meaning of atom ) before I know about this theorem of Leibniz I have concluded that two identical atoms could not exist alone in the same starting moment ! And I haven't got a solution to this till know Maybe the final conclusion is the word " impossible "

The medieval philosopher John Duns Scotus claimed that objects are defined only by their properties. "Substance is only a collection of properties in a particular place." And "haecceity" was the only property unique to objects, their "thisness". Leibniz modified the definition of haecceity, to mean a property that objects have that does not change over time. Which is weird, because where does a rotting trunk end and eart begin? Oh, Carnaedes point out all these issues, nice.

Simply to answer the questions at the end... I believe this is a valuable theory! YES! YES! And NO! Great presentation, thank you!

At 2:45 it seems to me that haecceity is describing the intrinsic indentifier which thus necessarily individuates a metaphysical object.

Swinburne has also written an article about thisness and there is another interesting article which has written by Diekemper on The Ontology of Thisness (2015). He is the first one, on his turn, who has written an ontology for thisness. By the way, would it be possible to have your email address for asking more information or booking a session? Tnx

so there are two fundamental meanings of haecceity (or thisness): a) haecceity to mean the unique actual property of an individual in the objective sense (mind independent sense) b) haecceity to mean the unique descriptive property of what is perceived as an individual in the subjective sense (mind dependent sense) now one explanation for where haecceities come from is that they are the unique form, or arrangement, of substance, that gives rise to the form through which the unique property (or thisness) can then manifest, but in this meaning of haecceities would then only exist insofar as whatever basic rules, or the order of what is possible, exists so then if this is true, haecceities would just be the unique forms of whatever is possible, or we could identify as possible

Hey I’d like to know what facticity means, specifically in Edmund Husserl’s writings.

Thanks so much for another excellent video Carneades.Org!

I don't know if haecceities exist (I doubt they do) however both the problem and question asked in this video do exist in their own right and are worth some consideration. Sometimes it seems like philosophers tend to take much longer way around to bypass simple language-based intuitions and try to build a wholly unnecessary cathedrals in the middle of nowhere. To me "haecceity" means nothing more than "distinguishability". There is really little sense imo in proposing ideas that cannot be justified in any way other than the simple fact that we perceive world in somewhat organized manner and not as a chaotic mess.

Relevant to problems regarding identity. Does Kripke have something to say in objection or agreement to haecceity in either Scotus or Leibniz?

6:29 I think haecceity seems to try to describe some sort of spooky property that we intuitively feel has relevancy, but I don't necessarily see anything about the concept that implies it's going to blow our minds with new perspective.

Thank you

I think debate about haecceity points up an irony; if analysis is carried out to the point where it ends, where analysis expires, as it were, we can either say, "At last we are there," or we can lament the fact that further analysis is not possible. I do not find haecceity to be so troubling for two reasons: 1) Identity is perhaps our most important and useful fundamental (primitive, unanalysable) concept; without it we are lost, without language or even coherent abstract thoughts. 2) We employ the idea of a token act of ostension as though this were somehow more clear or amenable to analysis than haecceity, but haecceity is like ostension which can be used both for known and for unknown contexts. Although we may not be able to explicate the idea, we frequently make tacit use of it when posing hypotheticals. It enables us to simply assert identity ex hypothesi. We are skeptical (not without cause) of haecceity, but if you say, "This table might have been a foot to the left," and I say, "You are not talking about this table," it strikes us that my objection is seriously amiss. That's because, regardless anyone's inability to give a principle of identity for the table (or anything) we still think we can talk about this table.

I think haecceities "exist" - but only in the here and now. And even then, the borders are fluid. We shed lots of cells, we even carry the dead ones around - and the "I" does not change when we leave some dead skin cells, clip our fingernails or cut our hair. And for that reason, I still consider it a rough abstraction - not without merit, but ontologically troublesome. The thing we consider "I" is an illusion. I'm both mentally or physically not the same person I was 20 years ago. The only thing that binds me to that person is my recollection of that person, who considered himself to be "I" at that moment. The decision to bind all these forms is IMHO a pragmatic one - I became this person from that person as much as this person originated in that person. That's the only continuity one can consider - and consequently "identity" is used pragmatically to express that relation. But like haecceities it's a crude abstraction, that falls apart the moment to try to nail it down by dividing things in parts, exchange (some of) those parts and then reassemble them to another thing.

What if only matter as big as Planck length have haecceity's the 2 ships are different because they're components have different haecceity's

4:46 This does feel like it maps fairly well into the Rick and Morty universe. Remember the robot clones and the evil Morty with the eye patch?

After thinking about this abit I realized this is just and ID or Index number or like a code line

I hate to be pedantic, but I have a minor pet peeve. It should be pronounced heck-SEE-ity and not heck-SAY-ity. (Likewise I can't understand saying DAY-ism for _deism_ and not DEE-ism.) I know it's probably a lost cause, but I can't stand this AY-vowel intruding where the EE-vowel should be pronounced.

6:05 yeah haecceity does sound spooky to me

It can also be pronunced "ace-SEE-it-y". Yes, it seems rather obvious that logically speaking, we are all unique in our own special way. What's _not_ obvious and _hasn't_ been proven are "possible worlds". Consider these facts: after spending millennia and hundreds of billions of dollars trying to find another earth and/or other living beings like ourselves - we.STILL. Haven't. Found. A. Single. One.

Can a single atom of hydrogen have its own haecceity?

It seems so obvious to me that there are no haecceities. There is no special property that people retain if all of our other properties change. It's just ego clinging to an identity. Same for other objects. If two objects had exactly all the same properties they would be just one object, and there's no issue since because they would exist at the same time and space, this would be impossible anyway

so "thisness" is meaningless after all