Abstract
If we consider any two entities (such as the two spheres in Max Black’s well-known thought-experiment) as individual possibilities, pure or actual, they cannot be considered indiscernible at all. Since allegedly indiscernible possibilities are necessarily one and the same possibility, any numerically distinct (at least two) possibilities must be discernible, independently of their properties, “monadic” or relational. Hence, any distinct possibility is also discernible. Metaphysically-ontologically, the identity of indiscernibles as possibilities is thus necessary, even though epistemic discernibility is still lacking or does not exist. Because any actuality is of an individual pure possibility, the identity also holds for actual indiscernibles. The metaphysical or ontological necessity of the identity of indiscernibles renders, I believe, any opposition to it entirely groundless.
A first version of this chapter was published in Metaphysica 6:2 (October 2005), pp. 25–51.
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Notes
- 1.
Leibniz, Russell, Whitehead, F. H. Bradley, and McTaggart supported it, whereas Wittgenstein (the locus classicus is Tractatus 5.5302, criticizing Russell and arguing that two distinct objects may have all their properties in common), C. S. Peirce, G. E. Moore, C. D. Broad, and Max Black are among its strong opponents. The support may adopt an idealistic stance, while the opposition is clearly anti-idealistic or empiricist.
- 2.
Black’s arguments have been discussed by Hacking (1975), Adams (1979), Casullo (1982), Denkel (1991), Landini and Foster (1991), French (1995), Cross (1995), O’Leary-Hawthorne (1995), Vallicella (1997), Zimmerman (1998), and Rodriguez-Pereyra (2004). Nevertheless, there is still room enough for alternative treatments of it on quite different grounds (especially different from those of fictionalism, the bundle theory, or haecceitism).
- 3.
Individual pure possibilities are exempt from any spatiotemporality. Can a sphere as a pure possibility be exempt from space? Yes, it can. Think of any figure, such as sphere, in the analytical geometry, which transforms any spatial distinction to algebraic properties. Although in Kantian terms, even algebraic properties are subject to temporality, since the arithmetic series is subject to it, yet my view is by no means Kantian, especially concerning spatiotemporality and the identity of indiscernibles. As a result, as individual pure possibilities, the two spheres are entirely exempt from spatiotemporality.
- 4.
For some other instructive examples of blind arguments versus illuminating insights see Gilead 2004a.
- 5.
- 6.
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Gilead, A. (2020). A Panenmentalist Reconsideration of the Identity of Indiscernibles. In: The Panenmentalist Philosophy of Science. Synthese Library, vol 424. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41124-4_3
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