Lexicon of Arguments

 

I 13
Identity/Boer: well-known individuals, characteristics and relations seem to have "identities" in the sense that there is something that makes them what they are. ((s) identity as a "set of (typical) properties").
Solution/Boer: then we could link actuality/existence with identity:
principle

(E!) A being is existing/actual iff an essential property is exemplified by him.

Non-actual/non-existent: here there are two possibilities then:
A) an essential property of N is not exemplified (e.g. fictional figures, "merely possible individuals" e.g. Superman).
>Possibilism.
Also Plantinga as an actualist pro)
>Actualism.
(B) N has no essential properties. For example, it is assumed that fictional characters are essentially fictional, that is, they could not be real. Then there might be at best an imitation of Superman. The fictional Superman is then a thing without individual essence.
If one accepts this, one can still maintain the thesis that all things are necessarily self-identical.
>Self-identity.