Publication Details

Abstract

The article’s focus is on the analogies and differences between the approaches to individuation in contemporary analytical philosophy and in Duns Scotus. Attention is paid especially to the comparison of the theory of naked substrates with Scotus’ conceiving the individual difference (haecceitas). It is argued, that if the naked substrate is conceived as an individuator, it is functionally similar to haecceity in Scotus’ ontology. If conceived as an individual, however, a fundamental difference comes to the fore: Haecceity is not an individual, but an individuation principle, which is, contrary to the theory of naked substrates, added to common essence and different from it. The naked substrate is – again contrary to Scotus’ conceiving of haecceity – void of the formal (essential) content. Furthermore, haecceity in itself is de jure accessible to cognition, but de facto (prostate isto) it is not the object of cognition.