Grades of Individuality

This paper offers a critical assessment of the current state of the debate about the identity and individuality of material objects. Its main aim, in particular, is to show that, in a sense to be carefully specified, the opposition between the Leibnizian „reductionist‟ tradition based on discernibility and the sort of „primitivism‟ that denies that facts of identity and individuality must be analysable has become out-dated. In particular, it is argued that – contrary to a widespread consensus „naturalised‟ metaphysics supports both the acceptability of nonqualitatively grounded (both „contextual‟ and intrinsic) identity and a pluralistic approach to individuality and individuation. A case study is offered that focuses on non-relativistic quantum mechanics, in the context of which primitivism about identity and individuality, rather than being regarded as unscientific, is on the contrary suggested to be preferable to the complicated forms of reductionism that have recently been proposed. More generally, assuming a plausible form of anti-reductionism about scientific theories and domains, it is claimed that science can be regarded as compatible with, or even as suggesting, the existence of a series of equally plausible grades of individuality the kind of individuality that prevails in a certain context and at a given level being ascertainable only on the basis of the specific scientific theory at hand.