The journal of philosophy

Abstract

IS the world-and are all possible worlds-constituted by purely qualitative facts, or does thisness hold a place beside suchness as a fundamental feature of reality? Some famous philosophers —Leibniz, Russell, and Ayer, for example-have believed in a purely qualitative constitution of things; others, such as Scotus, Kant, and Peirce, have held to primitive thisness. Recent discus sions of direct, nondescriptive reference to individuals have brought renewed interest in the idea of primitive, nonqualitative thisness.