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Individuals: In philosophy, individuals are entities that are distinct from other entities. They are typically characterized by their own unique properties and experiences. Individuals can be physical objects, such as humans, animals, and plants, or they can be non-physical objects, such as minds, souls, and thoughts. See also Particulars, Individuation.
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Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments.

 
Author Concept Summary/Quotes Sources

Jaakko Hintikka on Individuals - Dictionary of Arguments

II 2
Individual/well-defined/Hintikka: an individual is well-defined if it can be picked out by a name at a node of the world line.
>World lines
; cf. >Four-dimensionalism.
World Line: a world line can link non-existent embodiments of individuals as long as they are well-defined, for all worlds in which a node of the world line is localizable.
Truth conditions are then simple: (Ex) p (x) is true in world w iff. there is an individual, e.g. with the name z such that p (z) is true in w.
II 43
Individual/possible worlds/existence/Hintikka: how can an individual exist in several worlds? (By being in different worlds in different relations to its environment?)
>Possible worlds, >Centered worlds, >Possible worlds/Lewis, cf. >Counterpart theory.
Solution/Hintikka:
World Line/Hintikka: we must distinguish two ways, in which a world line cannot be drawn.
Case 1: our criteria of cross-world identification work with individual i would still fail in world w, which leads us to say that i does not exist in w.
Case 2: more radical: the criteria fail even in the sense that they cannot tell us what i is at all, then we cannot decide whether i exists in w or not (well-defined).
Well-defined/existence/Hintikka: N.B.: we can now say: thesis: that well-defined objects are in a certain sense in the actual world. This is the best rational reconstruction.

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Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments
The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition.

Hintikka I
Jaakko Hintikka
Merrill B. Hintikka
Investigating Wittgenstein
German Edition:
Untersuchungen zu Wittgenstein Frankfurt 1996

Hintikka II
Jaakko Hintikka
Merrill B. Hintikka
The Logic of Epistemology and the Epistemology of Logic Dordrecht 1989


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