Abstract
Over the last decade or so, there has been a renewed interest in a view about properties known as quidditism. However, a review of the literature reveals that ‘quidditism’ is used to cover a range of distinct views. In this paper I explore the logical space of distinct types of quidditism. The first distinction noted is between quidditism as a thesis explicitly about property individuation and quidditism as a principle of unrestricted property recombination. The distinction recently drawn by Dustin Locke between extravagant quidditism and austere quidditism is a distinction between quidditisms of the first type. It is then argued that austere quidditism may itself be further sub-divided into what I call ‘extremely austere quidditism’ and ‘moderately austere quidditism’. Moderately austere quidditism is argued to be preferable to extremely austere quidditism and further to be able to address many of the arguments leveled against quidditism in general.
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Notes
Cf., Armstrong (1989, p. 44): “[P]roperties and relations do each have their own haecceity, or, better, their own quiddity or nature”; Schaffer (2005, p. 24, footnote 2): “A quiddity is the ‘suchness’ of a property. It is its intrinsic nature” (p. 24). Locke (2012, p. 249): “[T]he term ‘quiddity’, in common usage and as I am using it here, refers to the alleged intrinsic aspect (nature, haecceity, etc.) of the property.”
Lewis has defined a fundamental or perfectly natural property of any adicity as one that is not (1) disjunctive, (2) determinable, (3) negative, (4) conjunctive, or (5) structural. They are intrinsic properties responsible for similarity relations between and causal powers of objects. All other properties are taken to supervene on the fundamental properties. See Lewis (1983, 2009 especially p. 204).
In this context, quidditism is frequently equated with or closely associated with categoricalism about properties. Locke (2012, pp. 347 and 352), however, makes a distinction between dispositionalism (the view that properties are one and the same as nomological roles) and structuralism (the view that properties are distinct from but individuated by their nomological roles). As Locke sees it, both structuralism and quidditism are species of categoricalism.
It is important to note that Lewis makes an explicit distinction between two aspects of the view: First, there is his combinatorialism which “tells us that possibility is preserved under permutation of items—at least if they are items from the same category” (Lewis 2009, p. 209). Secondly, there is quidditism proper that ensures that these possibilities are distinct. Together, they entail that distinct possibilities can differ just by permutation of fundamental properties.
Locke makes this even more explicit when he later considers a view that is “contrary to quidditism” on which “possibility is not preserved by freely permuting properties with respect to their nomological/locational roles” (Locke 2009, p. 236).
In this context it is worth noting that while all versions of R-quidditism would seem to require genuine cross-world identity, not all versions of I-quidditism do. For example, it would seem that Barker’s and Locke’s respective definitions of ‘quidditism’ presented above could be combined with a counterpart theory of cross-world property identity (although neither Barker nor Locke does so). In the remainder of the paper, however, I will largely ignore versions of I-quidditism that do not countenance genuine identity of properties across worlds.
It is interesting to contrast this definition of ‘quidditism’ (clearly a version of I-quidditism) with the R-quidditism developed later in Bird (2007), pp. 71–72.
Though here it is worth noting again that he has defined ‘quiddity’ as “the intrinsic aspect/nature/haecceity of a property […] when we are conceiving of this as something distinct (although perhaps not wholly distinct) from the property itself” (Locke 2012, p. 9; emphasis added). This seems to leave open that properties could nonetheless be intrinsic qualitative aspects/natures of the individuals that have them.
It isn’t entirely clear whether Lewis’ version of I-quidditism is best interpreted as a version of austere quidditism or as a version of extravagant quidditism. He writes: “I can think of no plausible example of an intrinsic (higher order) property which a bilocated property has at one but not another of its locations” (Lewis 2009, p. 210). This might seem to suggest that he takes the intrinsic nature of a property to be a higher order property (or collection thereof). If that is correct (and if such higher order properties are among the sparse properties), Lewis holds extravagant quidditism. However, much of what he has to say about quidditism is consistent with austere quidditism and Locke himself takes Lewis to be committed to austere quidditism (see Locke 2012, pp. 359 and 361–362).
This is certainly how Black (2000) interprets Lewis, writing: “Lewis follows Hume in denying that fundamental properties have, let alone consist of, essential causal powers. […] Just about all there is to a Humean fundamental quality is its identity with itself and its distinctness from other qualities” (p. 91) and “on Lewis’s view a fundamental quality never has anything intrinsic about it apart from its identity with itself” (p. 94). Whittle also interprets Lewis in this manner: “[G]iven the assumptions accepted by Lewis (and Armstrong), they seem to be left with merely numerically different properties whose intrinsic natures are merely numerically distinct from each other […]” (Whittle 2006, p. 476).
That the intrinsic aspects of properties that make them the properties that they are would be beyond our kin is the conclusion of Lewis’s argument for Ramseyan Humility. See Lewis (2009).
Schaffer (2005, p. 15) identifies four additional disanalogies between Lewisian haecceitism and quidditism.
It is important to note that Lewis’s claim that there isn’t much to the intrinsic nature of a property arises in the context of his argument that quidditism is not susceptible to the problem of accidental intrinsics—the problem that motivates his rejection of haecceitism: “There isn’t much to the intrinsic nature of a universal. Maybe it’s intrinsically simple, or maybe it’s composed somehow of other universals; but if so, that seems to be an essential matter, so we still have no intrinsic accidents to trouble us” (Lewis 1986, p 205). All that Lewis needs is that the intrinsic natures of properties are essential to them; he doesn’t need properties (whether fundamental or supervenient) to be in any sense non-qualitative or barely, numerically distinct.
However, it seems that an analogous distinction could be made within the category of extravagant quidditism. The quiddities that individuate fundamental properties (where quiddities are taken to be distinct from the properties themselves) might be taken to be barely, numerically distinct from one another or might be taken to have genuine qualitative differences.
Perhaps there will be some who are not convinced that what I am calling moderately austere quidditism should be regarded as a species of Locke’s austere quidditism. I am not ultimately wedded to the claim that it is. It is sufficient for my purposes that it is distinct both from extravagant quidditism and from what I am calling extremely austere quidditism. Those who prefer may read my uses of ‘extremely austere quidditism’ merely as ‘austere quidditism’ and my uses of ‘moderately austere quidditism’ as ‘moderate quidditism’.
As Locke sees it, what he calls ‘structuralism’ is also a counterpart theory of properties. “Let RP be the nomological role actually realized by P. As a theory of de re representation, structuralism is the thesis that a possibility w represents a property P as being a certain way if and only if w is a possibility where a property that realizes RP is that way” (Locke 2012, p. 356). Locke would not view what he calls ‘dispositionalism’ as a counterpart theory of properties. However, he believes there are other reasons to reject dispositionalism (see Locke 2012, pp. 253–254).
This of course does not rule out the possibility that a given individual has at least some essential qualities—qualities that it possesses in every world in which it exists. Robert Adams, who defends a form of haecceitism, writes: “[t]he conclusion, that there cannot be any purely qualitative necessary conditions for the possession of any given thisness, is absurd. For it implies that you and I, for example could have been individuals of any sort whatever—plutonium atoms, noises, football games, places, or times, if those are all individuals. If we cannot trust our intuition that we could not have been any of those things, then it is probably a waste of time to study de re modalities at all. If there are any transworld identities and non-identities, there are necessary connections between thisnesses and some suchnesses” (Adams 1979, pp. 24–25).
Adams (1979, pp. 7–8) defines a basic suchness as a property that is (1) not the property of being identical with a certain individual (in his terms, not a thisness), (2) not a relation to any particular individual(s), and (3) not a relation to a set extensionally defined by possessing any particular members.
It has been suggested by an anonymous reviewer that, since individuals are or are not (as the case may be) qualitatively distinct in virtue of the properties that they instantiate, we should hold that fundamental properties are or are not qualitatively distinct in virtue of (second-order) properties they instantiate. If that is correct, the distinction between an individual and its qualitative properties would find its analogue in the distinction between the fundamental property and its second-order properties. But this strikes me as a somewhat odd position for an austere quidditist to take. It is the extravagant quidditist who thinks that the qualitative nature (quiddity) of the fundamental property is something distinct from the property and thus may (but perhaps need not) conceive of it as a second-order property instantiated by the fundamental property. But the austere quidditist is not obliged to—and, if the view is to be more parsimonious than extravagant quidditism, ought not—think of the qualitative nature of the fundamental property (if indeed it has a non-null qualitative nature) as anything distinct from the property.
One might wonder what real advantage moderately austere quidditism has in this regard given that the only addition moderately austere quidditism makes to the extremely austere quidditist’s bare, numeric difference between distinct fundamental properties is a brute, unanalyzable qualitative difference. (Thanks are due to an anonymous reviewer for this journal for raising this concern.) For there to be a genuine advantage, we must be able to make sense of the moderately austere quidditist’s notion of a brute, unanalyzable qualitative difference between distinct fundamental properties. I believe that we can. Consider the analogy with color properties taken as purely phenomenal properties. While color properties are plausibly analyzable in terms of hue, saturation, and brightness, it is not implausible to suppose that the qualitative differences between, e.g., hues are brute and unanalyzable. If that is the case, then we are familiar with at least some brute, unanalyzable qualitative differences between properties. While the qualitative differences between hues may not in fact be brute and unanalyzable, it does not seem incoherent to suppose that they would be. To be sure, phenomenal properties are unlikely to be among the fundamental properties (or so it seems to me). However, if we can make sense of the idea that there would be brute, unanalyzable differences between at least some phenomenal properties, then the notion of brute, unanalyzable qualitative differences between fundamental properties is similarly coherent. So long as we have no clear idea how to make sense of barely, numerically distinct properties, moderately austere quidditism would seem to enjoy this slight advantage over extremely austere quidditism.
It is worth noting in this context that one could plausibly combine a view according to which the identity of individuals is primitive with the view that individuals have certain essential properties (perhaps their origins) that restrict the possible recombination of individuals. So, perhaps there is some extrinsic property of fundamental properties that is plausibly taken to be essential to them and that could be marshalled to explain a restriction on recombination. (I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for bringing this possibility to my attention.) My point here is simply that, unlike the case of the putative essentiality of origin for individuals, it is unclear what this extrinsic but essential property of fundamental properties could possibly be given extremely austere quidditism.
Compare the view entertained by Whittle according to which the intrinsic natures of fundamental properties, while structurally simple and unanalyzable, “are complex because they bestow an intricate nexus of powers upon the particulars that instantiate them” (Whittle 2006, p. 475). It is possible, however, that the view she has in mind is a version of extravagant quidditism rather than moderately austere quidditism.
This is not to say that non-recombinatorial quidditism must hold that any and all recombinations of fundamental properties are impossible. It is sufficient that the qualitative natures that are fundamental properties put some restrictions on recombination thereby necessitating a rejection of R-quidditism.
As such, non-recombinatorial quidditism is compatible with but distinct from the view that Schaffer has called modal necessitarianism (see Schaffer 2005, p. 2).
See Whittle (2006), pp. 477–479. As noted earlier, Armstrong (1997) is plausibly interpreted as endorsing extremely austere quidditism and it is less clear what sort of I-quidditism Lewis would endorse. What is clear is that both Lewis and Armstrong adopt versions of I-quidditism that entail R-quidditism. Whittle herself distinguishes between the property and its intrinsic nature—even imagining that one and the same property could be recombined with a distinct intrinsic nature (see Whittle 2006, p. 478). Although she is reluctant to call the intrinsic nature a quiddity (see footnote 15, p. 492–493), it is clear that she is engaging extravagant quidditism. However, it seems to me that her concern tells equally against extremely austere quidditism or any other form of I-quidditism that would entail R-quidditism.
This is the response ultimately advocated by Whittle (2006).
Thanks are due to an anonymous reviewer for this journal for pointing this out.
Here it is worth noting that Heil’s view according to which properties are “powerful qualities” has a ready answer: the relation between a quality and its nomological role is identity. As such, if P1 and P2 have the same nomological profile in any world, it will be the case that P1 = P2.
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Acknowledgment
I would like to thank Adam R. Thompson for fruitful exchanges about quidditism and Aviv Hoffmann for helpful conversations regarding principles of combination.
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Smith, D.C. Quid Quidditism Est?. Erkenn 81, 237–257 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-015-9737-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-015-9737-y