Which Came First, the Object or the Haecceity?:

Haecceitism and the Case of Fission

Abstract

    Haecceitism is the idea that each particular object has a haecceity: the property that determines its uniqueness as an object. Thus, for example, we could say that Socratesʼs haecceity is the property of being (identical with) Socrates. However, haecceitism seems to face the “Haecceitic Euthyphro Problem,” namely, that, especially in the case of fission of an amoeba, it is unclear how to set an explanatory order between the two facts: the destruction or generation of particular objects and the instantiation of their haecceities. In this paper, I distinguish between two versions of haecceitism and address this issue with the version I call “primitivist haecceitism.”