Counterparts within Actuality
نویسنده
چکیده
On one interpretation, haecceitism is the doctrine that there are distinct possible worlds that are qualitatively just alike. On another interpretation, haecceitism is the doctrine that there are distinct possible worlds that are qualitatively just alike and also differ with respect to the de-re possibilities they represent for some individual— with respect, that is, to how they represent that individual as being in that world. Rejection of the second doctrine means that it can’t be, for example, that I might have been born before 1970 while the entire world satisfied a certain purely qualitative description, and that I might also have been born after 1970 while the entire world satisfied that very same purely qualitative description, where a purely qualitative description is one that involves no reference to particular individuals. Haecceitism II clearly entails Haecceitism I, since if there are distinct worlds that are qualitatively the same and differ with respect to how they represent de re, then a fortiori there are distinct worlds that are qualitatively the same full stop. The distinction between these two haecceitisms comes from David Lewis. Lewis’s modal realism leaves Haecceitism I very much open as a live possibility: if possible worlds are concrete objects not differing in kind from the actual world, then why shouldn’t there be a multiplicity of them satisfying any given qualitative description? Or, to borrow Kripke’s suggestive imagery, if possible worlds are concrete objects not differing in kind from the actual world, why should we expect to be able to distinguish distinct ones using just our modal telescope?
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