Leibnizian Rejection of Standard Thought Experiments against Identity of Indiscernibles
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Ari Maunu
Abstract
It is argued that from a genuine Leibnizian point of view the well-known thought experiment, call it BTE, involving a possible world with only two exactly similar objects, cannot be used to refute Leibniz’s principle of the identity of indiscernibles (LIdI). If the claim that there are two objects in BTE is based on primitive thisnesses, the Leibnizian objection is that there are no such things; and even if there were, then, quite generally, something true of one object – that it has its primitive thisness – would not be true of the other. Secondly, if the duality claim is based on a primitive, irreducible relation of distinctness, the Leibnizian objection is that there are no irreducible relations. Finally, if it is said that the (putatively) two objects in BTE cannot be separately individuated, then BTE is not a counter-example to LIdI, because if there is no individuation, there are no individuals either, while LIdI presupposes that there are individuals.
References
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©2015 by De Gruyter
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Language and Hume’s Search for a Theory of the Self
- A Cardinal Worry for Permissive Metaontology
- Referential Indeterminacy with an Ontic Source? – A Criticism of Williams’s Defense of Vague Objects
- Worlds, Not Worldviews: Reply to Beillard
- Leibnizian Rejection of Standard Thought Experiments against Identity of Indiscernibles
- Kim on Events
- Curiosity Kills the Categories: A Dilemma about Categories and Modality
- Power Individuation: A New Version of the Single-Tracking View
- Temporal Phenomena, Ontology and the R-theory
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Language and Hume’s Search for a Theory of the Self
- A Cardinal Worry for Permissive Metaontology
- Referential Indeterminacy with an Ontic Source? – A Criticism of Williams’s Defense of Vague Objects
- Worlds, Not Worldviews: Reply to Beillard
- Leibnizian Rejection of Standard Thought Experiments against Identity of Indiscernibles
- Kim on Events
- Curiosity Kills the Categories: A Dilemma about Categories and Modality
- Power Individuation: A New Version of the Single-Tracking View
- Temporal Phenomena, Ontology and the R-theory
