Abstract
I propose a fourfold categorisation of entities according to whether or not they possess determinate identity-conditions and whether or not they are determinately countable. Some entities – which I call ‘individual objects’ – have both determinate identity and determinate countability: for example, persons and animals. In the case of entities of a kind K belonging to this category, we are in principle always entitled to expect there to be determinate answers to such questions as ‘Is x the same K as y?’ and ’How many Ks are there satisfying condition C?’, even if we may sometimes be unable in practice to discover what these answers are. But other entities apparently lack either determinate identity, or determinate countability, or both. In these terms I try to explain certain important ontological differences between familiar macroscopic objects and various rather more esoteric entities, such as the ‘particles’ of quantum physics, quantities of material stuff, and tropes or property instances.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Armstrong, D.: 1989, Universals: An Opinionated Introduction, Westview Press, Boulder CO.
Brandom, R.: 1996, ‘The Significance of Complex Numbers for Frege's Philosophy of Mathematics’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 96, 293–315.
Campbell, K.: 1990, Abstract Particulars, Blackwell, Oxford.
Cartwright, H. M.: 1965, ‘Heraclitus and the Bath Water’, Philosophical Review 74, 466–85.
da Costa, N. C. A. and Krause, D.: 1994, ‘Schrödinger Logics’, Studia Logica 53, 533–49.
Dummett, M.: 1981, Frege: Philosophy of Language, 2nd edn, Duckworth, London.
Evans, G.: 1978, ‘Can There Be Vague Objects?’, Analysis 38, 208.
French, S. and Krause, D.: 1995, ‘Vague Identity and Quantum Non-Individuality’, Analysis 55, 20–6.
Hoffman, J. and Rosenkrantz, G.: 1994, Substance Among Other Categories, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Krause, D.: 1992, ‘On a Quasi-Set Theory’, Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 33, 402–11.
Krause, D. and French, S.: 1995, ‘A Formal Framework for Quantum Non-Individuality’, Synthese 102, 195–214.
Lewis, D.: 1991, Parts of Classes, Blackwell, Oxford.
Lowe, E. J.: 1989, Kinds of Being: A Study of Individuation, Identity and the Logic of Sortal Terms, Blackwell, Oxford.
Lowe, E. J.: 1994, ‘Vague Identity and Quantum Indeterminacy’, Analysis 54, 110–14.
Lowe, E. J.: 1995a, ‘Coinciding Objects: In Defence of the “Standard Account”’, Analysis 55, 171–8.
Lowe, E. J.: 1995b, ‘The Metaphysics of Abstract Objects’, Journal of Philosophy 92, 509–24.
Lowe, E. J.: 1996, Subjects of Experience, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Lowe, E. J.: 1997a, ‘Reply to Noonan on Vague Identity’, Analysis 57, 88–91.
Lowe, E. J.: 1997b, ‘Ontological Categories and Natural Kinds’, Philosophical Papers 26, 29–46.
Lowe, E. J.: 1997c, ‘Objects and Criteria of Identity’, in Hale, B. and Wright, C. (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Language, Blackwell, Oxford.
Noonan, H. W.: 1995, ‘E. J. Lowe on Vague Identity and Quantum Indeterminacy’, Analysis 55, 14–19.
Quine, W. V. O.: 1961, ‘On What There Is’, in his From a Logical Point of View, 2nd edn, Harper & Row, New York.
Swinburne, R.: 1995, ‘Thisness’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 73, 389–400.
Wiggins, D.: 1980, Sameness and Substance, Blackwell, Oxford.
Zimmerman, D. W.: 1995, ‘Theories of Masses and Problems of Constitution’, Philosophical Review 104, 53–110.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lowe, E. Entity, Identity and Unity. Erkenntnis 48, 191–208 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005327718934
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005327718934