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Causal essentialism and the identity of indiscernibles

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Abstract

Causal essentialists hold that a property essentially bears its causal and nomic relations. Further, as many causal essentialists have noted, the main motivations for causal essentialism also motivate holding that properties are individuated in terms of their causal and nomic relations. This amounts to a kind of identity of indiscernibles thesis; properties that are indiscernible with respect to their causal and nomic relations are identical. This can be compared with the more well-known identity of indiscernibles thesis, according to which particulars that are qualitatively indiscernible are identical. Robert Adams has developed a well-known objection to this thesis by considering a series of possibilities involving nearly qualitatively indiscernible particulars that naturally leads to a possibility involving qualitatively indiscernible particulars. I argue that we can construct parallel cases involving a series of possibilities involving properties that are nearly indiscernible with respect to their causal and nomic relations that naturally lead to possibilities involving properties that are indiscernible with respect to their causal and nomic relations. The same features that make Adams’ argument forceful also carry over to my cases, giving us a powerful objection to the causal essentialist identity of indiscernibles thesis.

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Notes

  1. Defenders of causal essentialism include, inter alia, Bird (2007), Bostock (2003), Ellis (2001), Kistler (2002), Martin (1993), Mumford (2004), Shoemaker (1980, 1998), Swoyer (1982), and Wilson (2010).

  2. I owe the term ‘continuity argument’ to Forrest (2016).

  3. Schaffer (2005: 12–13) briefly mentions one, but doesn’t develop it.

  4. One could also consider identity of indiscernibles theses intended to be merely contingently true, rather than necessarily true, but that lies outside of my interest here.

  5. For more discussion, see Forrest (2016).

  6. There is a strong case to be made that the identity of qualitatively indiscernible particulars is violated by quantum mechanical phenomena, see French (2015) for details. But regardless of whether we should reject the principle on other grounds, we can still consider how strong Adams’ continuity argument is. This is of particular interest for comparing Adams’ continuity argument with my own continuity argument against identity of indiscernibles theses applied to properties. Note that considerations of quantum mechanics only supports the possibility of indiscernible particulars, not indiscernible properties. I thank an anonymous referee for raising this concern to my attention.

  7. Adams original case only makes use of a single world with nearly indiscernible spheres, and takes this to be a reason to accept a world with indiscernible spheres. My presentation of the argument uses a series of worlds that leads to the world with indiscernible spheres. I think this is a stronger way to present the argument, but I admit that this may not be what Adams originally had in mind, so this may only be an argument suggested by Adams. In an interesting forthcoming paper, Rodriguez-Pereyra (2016) criticizes Adams’ argument, focusing on the premise that if there is a possible world with nearly indiscernible objects, then there is a possible world with indiscernble objects. However, focusing on a series of worlds brings to light considerations in favor of the argument that differ from the one’s that Rodriguez-Pereyra considers in his paper. I will focus on these considerations in detail when I compare the continuity argument involving indiscernible spheres with the continuity arguments relevant to causal essentialism.

  8. For our purposes, we’re only interested in properties that figure into causal or nomic relations. Some causal essentialists might restrict (CE) to certain properties, for example, they might not apply (CE) to spatiotemporal relations, cf. Ellis and Lierse (1994). Such a restriction will not affect my arguments so I set it aside.

  9. There are questions about exactly which properties can switch their causal and nomic relations that I want to gloss over. For example, Black (2000: 103) argues that the example involving quark color doesn’t work. Nevertheless, if one isn’t a causal essentialist, presumably there are some properties that can be switched in the way the example requires.

  10. Shoemaker (1980) and Bird (2007: 76–79) both appeal to this motivation.

  11. As in the case of the epistemic motivation, attempting to distinguish the properties on the basis of the location of their instances doesn’t help, since the properties swap their patterns of instantiation between worlds. Further, holding that their patterns of instantiation are essential seems to be a non-starter. Surely it is contingent how, say, mass is distributed across spacetime.

  12. Black (2000) argues against a Humean conception of properties on the grounds of mere quiddistic differences. Bird (2007: 73–80) develops this into an argument in favor of causal essentialism. See also Mumford (2004: 103–104, 151–152) and Kistler (2002: 69).

  13. This view is defended by Armstrong (1983), Dretske (1977), and Tooley (1977).

  14. This procedure is named for Frank Ramsey who developed it in his (1978).

  15. Bird (2007: 138–146) accepts (SI). Hawthorne (2001) considers this view at length calling it ‘causal structuralism.’ Schaffer (2005) also considers it, calling it ‘nomic necessitarianism.’ He classifies Ellis (2001), Ellis and Lierse (1994), and Kistler (2002) as proponents of this view, but considers the classification as largely indeterminate.

  16. The most prominent contemporary Humean is David Lewis. See Lewis (1986a: 86–92) and the introduction to his (1986b).

  17. On the way I’m understanding the predicate for the nomic relation, the conjunct ‘(F1 ∧ F2)n F4)’ does not imply that F1 is distinct from F2. It is consistent with them being identical.

  18. I don’t mean to make a claim about whether the laws of nature generally do or don’t explicitly say that two properties are distinct. I’m merely providing a framework for formulating a principle of plenitude for the causal essentialist.

  19. I have diverged from Hawthorne’s principle. He does not add my restriction to guarantee that (SC) will not entail worlds with distinct, structurally indiscernible properties; instead he intends for it to have that consequence, see Hawthorne (2001: 373).

  20. I have in mind something like ‘G1nG2 ∧ (G1 ∧ G2)nG3 ∧ (G1 ∧ G2 ∧ G3)nG4…’ These laws allow us to distinguish G1…G9 from one another, but they won’t affect the upshot of the case in the text. When we introduce more properties to be nomically connected to H, there are also laws that allow us to distinguish those properties from one another.

  21. Assume that the laws that distinguish the G properties from one another and the laws that distinguish the I properties from one another are symmetrical so that once there are the same number of each, the laws don’t distinguish the G properties from the I properties.

  22. See Rasmussen (2014) for one way of developing this idea.

  23. In particular, we need to beware of changes that are disjunctive; for example, the change of adding a mug unless there are five mugs, in which case a contradiction is made true. Clearly, this change will sometimes preserve possibility (whenever there are less than five mugs), but it won’t always. That said, the changes made in both Adams’ continuity argument and my own don’t involve disjunctive changes of this sort.

  24. For more details, see Lewis (1968, 1986a: 192–264).

  25. On gaps in logical space, see Lewis (1986a: 86) and Bricker (1991: 610–611).

  26. This idea forms the basis of Kment’s (2014) theory of modality. Lange (2009) makes use of a similar idea in his account of laws of nature.

  27. See O’Leary-Hawthorne (1995) for more on the relationship between the bundle theory and the identity of qualitatively indiscernible particulars.

  28. Hawley (2009: 113) argues that there are difficulties with this response.

  29. This way of defining nomic indiscernibility runs into difficulties in cases where the lawbook explicitly says that two properties are distinct. If the example lawbook AnC ∧ BnC also includes the conjunct A ≠ B, then A and B will no longer be nomically indiscernible. Consider the open sentence F ≠ B. Only A satisfies this and not B. However, if one holds that properties are individuated on the basis of their causal and nomic relations, then this doesn’t seem like a legitimate way of making A and B discernible. We can handle this by requiring that when we obtain open sentences from the lawbook, we also remove every atomic sentence involving the identity relation. But for simplicity, I’ll set this complexity aside.

  30. This version of causal essentialism is defended by Shoemaker (1980, 1998). It is considered by Schaffer (2005) where he calls it ‘causal necessitarianism.’ See also the appendix to Hawthorne (2001).

  31. Moreover, appealing to the bundle of powers theory doesn’t help. For the same reasons discussed above, this approach won’t remove a gap in logical space. The language for expressing fundamental facts, on this approach, still allows one to express the possibility of there being two distinct bundles of the same powers.

  32. For example, see Bird (2007: 81–98).

  33. See Heil (2004) and Jacobs (2011) for discussion.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Phillip Bricker, Vanessa Carr, Justin Dealy, Edward Ferrier, Peter Graham, Dennis Klavakoglu, Joseph Levine, Ned Markosian, Chris Meacham, two anonymous referees, and the audience at the Society for the Metaphysics of Science conference for comments and discussion.

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    Cameron Gibbs

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Gibbs, C. Causal essentialism and the identity of indiscernibles. Philos Stud 175, 2331–2351 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-017-0961-y

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