Singleness : : Self-Individuation and Its Rejection in the Scholastic Debate on Principles of Individuation / / Michal Glowala.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DG Plus DeG Package 2016 Part 1
• VerfasserIn: Glowala, Michal,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter, , [2016]; ©2016
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Series: Philosophische Analyse / Philosophical Analysis , 70
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (IX, 163 p.)

The book is a systematic study of the issue of self-individuation in the scholastic debate on principles of individuation (principia individuationis). The point of departure is a general formulation of the problem of individuation acceptable for all the participants of the scholastic debate: a principle of individuation of x is what makes x individual (in various possible senses of ‘making something individual’). The book argues against a prima facie plausible view that everything that is individual is individual by itself and not by anything distinct from it (Strong Self-Individuation Thesis). The keynote topic of the book is a detailed analysis of the two competing ways of rejecting the Strong Self-Individuation Thesis: the Scotistic and the Thomistic one. The book defends the latter one, discussing a number of issues concerning substantial and accidental forms, essences, properties, instantiation, the Thomistic notion of materia signata, Frege’s Begriff-Gegenstand distinction, and Geach’s form-function analogy developed in his writings on Aquinas. In the context of both the scholastic and contemporary metaphysics, the book offers a framework for dealing with issues of individuality and defends a Thomistic theory of individuation.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Foreword -- Contents -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Entitas. Nominalism and Self-Individuation -- 3. Haecceitas. The Scotistic Rejection of the Strong Self-Individuation Thesis -- 4. Forms and Self-Individuation -- 5. Subjects as Principles of the Individuation of Their Accidents -- 6. Matter: Noninstantiability and Self-Individuation -- 7. Quantity and Self-Individuation -- 8. Actual Existence and Individuality -- 9. Concluding Remarks: The Thomistic Theory of Individuation -- Bibliography -- Index