Haecceities: Essentialism, Identity, and Abstraction

483 Pages·2017·6.897 MB·English

by  Jeffrey Strayer

Haecceities
Philosophy of History and
Culture
Edited by
Michael Krausz (Bryn Mawr College)
Advisory Board
Annette Baier† (University of Pittsburgh)
Purushottama Bilimoria (Deakin University, Australia)
Cora Diamond (University of Virginia)
William Dray† (University of Ottawa)
Nancy Fraser (New School for Social Research)
Clifford Geertz† (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton)
Peter Hacker (St. John’s College, Oxford)
Rom Harré (Linacre College, Oxford)
Bernard Harrison (University of Sussex)
Martha Nussbaum (University of Chicago)
Leon Pompa (University of Birmingham)
Joseph Raz (Balliol College, Oxford)
Amélie Rorty (Harvard University)
VOLUME 36
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/phc
Haecceities
Essentialism, Identity, and Abstraction
By
Jeffrey Strayer
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Cover illustration: ‘Haecceity 9.1.1 on Strayer Drafting Table’ by John Gevers.
Photography and image credits: Figures 3.5, 3.6, 4.7, and 5.6 are by John Gevers. The photographs of
Figures 3.7, 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3 are by Garry Burelison of Century Imaging. All other figures are by
Garry Burelison of Century Imaging.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Strayer, Jeffrey, author.
Title: Haecceities : essentialism, identity, and abstraction / by Jeffrey
Strayer.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2017. | Series: Philosophy of history
and culture, ISSN 0922-6001 ; Volume 36 | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016047966 (print) | LCCN 2017000841 (ebook) | ISBN
9789004338432 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9789004338449 (E-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Art, Abstract. | Abstraction. | Art—Philosophy. | Haecceity
(Philosophy) | Strayer, Jeffrey. Haecceities series.
Classification: LCC N6494.A2 S825 2017 (print) | LCC N6494.A2 (ebook) | DDC
709.04/052—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016047966
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
issn 0922-6001
isbn 978-90-04-33843-2 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-33844-9 (e-book)
Copyright 2017 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi
and Hotei Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
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Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change.
This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.
To Angela
to Aubrey and Vanessa
and to the memory of ZBS
∵

Contents
Acknowledgments XVII
List of Haecceity Illustrations and Figures xViiI
Part 1
Introduction 
1 Theses of Abstraction 13
1.1 Singling Something Out 13
1.2 Singling Out Objects 14
1.3 Particular Identity 19
1.4 Understanding Particular Identity 19
1.5 Artwork Identity and Perceptual Objects 20
1.6 The Notion of an Artistic Complex 20
1.7 Using Essential Elements of an Artistic Complex 20
2 The Essential Elements of an Artistic Complex and the Idea of
Essentialism or Essentialist Abstraction 22 
2.1 Object 22
2.2 Subject 23
2.3 Consciousness: Perceptual and Conceptual Awareness 23
2.4 Agency 25
2.5 Epistemological Relations of Subject to Object: Knowing Which,
Knowing That, and Knowing What 26
2.6 Indexicals 27
2.7 Logical Relations of Objects and Consciousness: Phenomenality and
Noumenality 28
2.8 History of Awareness and Agency 30
2.9 Cause and Effect and Change 31
2.10 Becoming 32
2.11 Stability and Change in Dependent and Intended Objects 32
2.12 Apprehension and Reapprehension 33
2.13 Identity and Difference 33
2.14 Parts and Wholes 34
2.15 Space and Time 34
2.16 Continuity and Discontinuity and Recurrence and
Non-Recurrence 35
2.17 Aesthetically Essential Properties 35
viii CONTENTS
3 Radical Identity 37
4 Essence and Essentialism 39
5 Consciousness 40
5.1 Consciousness is Heterogeneous 40
5.2 Consciousness is Multifarious 40
5.3 Reflexive and Irreflexive Events 41
5.4 Monadic and Polyadic Events 42
5.5 First-Order and Second-Order Events 42
6 Objects 44
6.1 Existential and Non-Existential Objects 44
6.2 Phenomenal and Noumenal Objects 47
6.3 Dependent and Independent Objects 48
6.4 Ideational Objects 48
6.5 Identity-Dependent Objects 49
6.6 Type-Dependent Objects 51
7 Summary and the Goals and Workings of Essentialism 52
Part 2
Space, Time, Language, and Objects, and Particular Matters of
General Relevance to Essentialism
8 The Particularity of Objects and the Use of the Term ‘haecceity’ in
Regard to Essentialist Artworks 58
8.1 Thisness and Whatness 58
8.2 Whatness and Thisness 59
8.3 The Primacy of Thisness 59
8.4 Haecceity 60
9 Space, Language, and the Perceptual Object 63
9.1 Language and Two-Dimensional Space 63
9.2 The Relation of Written Language to Things Beyond its Space 64
9.3 The Figure of Language and its Surrounding Ground 65
9.4 Linear and Circular Language on Stationary Grounds 65
9.5 The Problem of Number and its Solution 66
9.6 The Problem of Distribution and the Solution of it and the Problem
of Number in Relation to One Another 67
CONTENTS ix
9.7 The Problem of Figure and Ground 70
9.8 The Solution of the Problem of Figure and Ground 71
9.9 The Problem of Asymmetry 76
9.10 The Solution of the Problem of Asymmetry 77
9.11 The Simultaneous Solution of the Problems of Number,
Distribution, Figure and Ground, and Asymmetry for Linear
Language on a Two-Dimensional Surface 77
10 Effects of the Algorithm: Visible and Invisible, On and Off the
Surface 85
10.1 Matrices in Conceptual Space 85
10.2 Dualities and Identities 88
10.3 Grids and Matrices 89
10.4 The Visual Relation of Matrices to their Surrounding Space 91
10.5 Additional Matters Pertaining to the Use of Matrices 91
11 Time and the Perceptual Object 94
12 Space, Time, Language, and the Perceptual Object 95
13 Meaning, Specification Tokens, and Matrices 99
14 Time and the Specified Object 105
15 Change and the Perceptual Object 106
15.1 The Standard Case 106
15.2 Possible Sources of Change 107
15.3 Imagined Change 107
15.4 Points of Relevance to Imagined Change 112
16 Interpretation 116
17 The Delimitation of Logical Space and a Subject’s History of
Awareness 118
17.1 Objects and Boundaries 118
17.2 Phenomenal Divisions of the Space of Objects and
Awareness 121
17.3 Essentialist Delimitations 122
17.4 Awareness and Objects 125
17.5 Language and Abstraction 126