Uma abordagem reducionista ao problema da identidade dos indiscerníveis

Abstract

I aim to defend the thesis that the truth of any proposition about the number of particulars that exist in the world is supervenient upon the truth of all propositions exclusively about universals (i.e., properties and relations). If this thesis is correct, all facts about the individuation of particulars are reducible to facts exclusively about universals, and there is no primitive individuation of particulars. I present two arguments against the possibility of this kind of primitive individuation. The first is that the possibility of primitively individuated particulars raises radical skeptical doubts about the number of particulars with which we are acquainted. The second is that primitively individuated particulars are theoretically redundant since the qualitative character of any possible world can be exhaustively described if we talk only about universals. The classical bundle theory is the most common variety of reductionism about the number of particulars, but I also want to defend that it is not the only possible variety. More specifically, I present an alternative according to which particulars are individuated by spatial relations. This alternative, in contrast to bundle theory, does not commit us to the controversial principle of the identity of indiscernibles, but it implies a transcendent conception of universals.