Alexander Pruss's Blog

On the Aristotelian account of abstraction, we abstract the forms of things via perception. But here is a problem. First of all, we sometime...

Here is a very plausible pair of claims: The Son could have become incarnate as a different human being. God foreknew many centuries ahea...

Suppose I eat a chocolate bar and this causes me to have a trope of pleasure. Given assentiality of origins, if I had eaten a numerically di...

A haecceity H of x is a property of an entity such that necessarily x exists if and only if x instantiates H . Haecceities are normally...

The Analytic Collective and SCP are having an inaugural online session on August 21 at 4-5:30 pm Eastern Time to discuss Scott Hill's f...

Here is a controversial thesis that might, nonetheless, turn out to be true: A is causally prior to B if and only if A  ≠  B and it is ...

Converse essentiality of qualitative origins holds that if possible objects x and y have the same qualitative causal history—i.e., their i...

Here is a suggestive Thomistic line of thought in favor of the essentiality of origins—i.e., the principle that the causes of things are ess...

These claims are really plausible: I exist because I was caused by my parents. My having been caused by my parents is a fact about me. My ...

Molly Gardner in a piece that just came out offers an interesting new solution to the non-identity problem, the problem of making sense of ...

I assume that a strong essentiality of origins thesis holds, so that for any action we could take but did not take, had we taken the action,...

Start with this consequence of the essentiality of origins: The identity of an individual depends on the exact time of her coming-into-exist...

We say that a proposition p precludes a proposition q provided that p and q cannot both be true. We say that x is purely good pro...

Let L be the laws of nature. Suppose: Everything in the causal history of the coming into existence of an entity is essential ...

Start with: If x originates from chunk α of matter and β is a non-overlapping chunk of matter, then x couldn't have originated fr...

(Premise) If a perfect being can't desire a state of affairs A , then A is not a good state of affairs. (Premise) A perfect being ca...

The following argument is valid: (Premise) If there are no haecceities, then there are no propositions de re about non-existen...

(Premise) If essentiality of origins doesn't hold, then every particle has a haecceity. (Premise) A haecceity of x is an intrinsi...

If determinism is true, then any possible world in which at t 0 I act differently from how I actually act at t 0 is a world whe...

Radical Essentiality of Origins (REO) is the thesis that the complete origins of an entity x are necessary and sufficient to the ...