The relative identity thesis implies that identity facts are grounded by qualitative criteria of identity, whereas absolute identity theorists deny the supervenience of identity on qualitative properties. I explore how the phenomenological tradition might contribute to this debate by addressing four junctures. The first juncture is the definition of qualitative and non- qualitative properties. I develop a context-dependent account by interpreting Husserl's distinction between constitutive determinations and principia individuationis: x is qualitative and y is extra- qualitative if y is a particular that individuates an instance of x. The second juncture is whether relative identity holds in some or all cases. I distinguish between entities that behave in a certain manner over their principles of individuation and those that fill the blank of their principles of individuation. Relative identity applies to the former and absolute identity applies to the latter. The third juncture is whether identity is a dyadic relation or a monadic property. I argue that behaving- over identity must be relational, whereas blank-filling identity is originally monadic. The behaving-over identity is where the non-tautological reflexivity of identity holds. The tautological sense of reflexivity is induced by the repeated use of a sign. Arguments against relative identity beg the question if they confuse two senses of reflexivity. The last juncture is the alleged alliance between vagueness and relative identity. It does not hold in general, but the idealized repeated use of a sign does create the impression that absolute identity applies to everything.
| Type : | : | Contribution individuelle (session libre) |
| Commentaire | : | I explore how the phenomenological tradition can contribute to the absolute/relative identity debate by taking a position at four junctures. This exploration might bring some historical resources to analytic philosophers' attention and highlight the relevance of this analytic debate for phenomenologists. (1) The first juncture of this debate is the distinction between qualitative and non-qualitative properties. The relative identity thesis has an intuitive appeal, only if the criterion of identity is characterized in terms of qualitative properties. But this important distinction has not been systematically discussed until recently (Cowling, 2015, 2020; Hoffman-Kolss, 2019; Simmons, 2020, 2021). I offer a context-dependent account based on Husserl's distinction between constitutive determinations and principia individuationis in his hierarchy of individuation: x is extra-qualitative and y is qualitative if x is a particular that individuates an instance of y. Depending on the context, spatiotemporal positions can either be qualitative or extra-qualitative, but this would not lead to confusion. (2) The second juncture is how strong the relative identity thesis should be (Noonan, 1980, p. 24; Garbacz, 2004; Molto, 2019; Deutsch & Garbacz, 2024): does it apply to all or only certain entities? I propose a weak version of the relative identity thesis by distinguishing between two sorts of entities which Husserl terms ‘behaving-over' and ‘blank-filling' respectively. Paradigm cases for behaving-over entities are persistent ones such as an apple, but intermittent and distributive entities are also included, such as ‘the book Hamlet' and ‘the Minister of Education qua functionary'. Blank-filling entities include occurrences and qualified spatial regions. I use these two metaphors to avoid the historical burden of ‘object/substance' and ‘occurrence'; they are also more general and informative than the traditional terms. I argue that behaving-over entities are relatively identical, because behaving is always behaving S-ly. The arbitrary owners of two behaviours are identical only if the behaviours meet the qualitative constraint prescribed by a certain qualitative property F. In contrast, absolute identity suits blank-filling entities, because they can be recombined arbitrarily, irrespective of the qualitative connections. (3) The third juncture is whether identity is relational. Many authors believe in its relationality. C J. F. Williams argues against relative identity by rejecting the relationality of identity, following Wittgenstein. I argue that behaving-over identity is essentially a relation between arbitrary owners of behaviours, whilst blank-filling identity is originally monadic. A consequence is the meaning of the tautological and non-tautological reflexivity of identity. Non-tautological reflexivity holds between arbitrary owners of behaviours, whereas tautological reflexivity is induced by the repeated use of a sign: the sign itself is a behaving-over entity such that the user stipulates its denotatum to be behaving-over-ly identical as well. Tautological reflexivity lacks ontological relevance, because it is a mere linguistic stipulation that provides no ontological information. A bunch of authors conflate tautological and non-tautological reflexivity of identity (Noonan, Perry, Lowe and Wiggins). By doing this, they smuggle absolute identity into their arguments against relative identity and beg the question. The lesson from this is the need for a reformed language in the discussions over relative identity: instead of denoting entities with different criteria of identity with the same name (using ‘John' to name the functionary Minister of Education and the person John), one had better say ‘an arbitrary owner of the behaviour...'. This talk is less elegant, but one should not sacrifice ontological subtitles for the sake of simplicity in formalization. (4) The last juncture is whether relatively identity is allied with vagueness, as claimed by Zemach (1992, p. 89). With a Husserlian analysis of typicalness and idealization, I argue that this alliance does not generally hold. Still, the idealization of language—a sign can be repeatedly used without any restriction (regardless of what the denotatum is) to denote the same entity—creates the impression that absolute identity applies to everything. |
| Thématiques | : | Métaphysique |
| Mots-Clés | : | relative identity ; qualitative properties ; reflexivity ; vagueness ; phenomenology |
| PDF version | : |  PDF version |
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