基于随附原则的同一性认知方案

A Cognitive Program of Individual Identity Based on Supervenience

个体同一性是当代分析形而上学的核心论题。借助可能世界语义学的装置,该论题的紧迫性进一步暴露,其本身并不能被简单的形式化手段所回答,其真正面临的是:如何在纷繁复杂的变化中,给予个体存在的标准。本质主义似乎是首选方案,然而,基于模态逻辑的必然属性却无法真正地刻画本质。出于认知上对空同一的拒斥,随附原则承诺个体同一性理应以其他可感知的质的属性为基础。借此,立足于主体实际的同一性判断,可构建一种“自下而上”的动态认知途径,为找寻个体同一性标准提供认知上的参考。

Individual identity is a central issue of contemporary analytic metaphysics. With the device of the semantics of possible worlds, the urgency of the issue is further exposed, which itself cannot be answered by simple formal methods, and which is really confronted with the question: how to give a criterion to the existence of the individual in complex change. Essentialism seems to be the preferred option, yet the necessary properties based on modal logic fail to truly portray the essence. Out of a cognitive rejection of bare identity, the principle of supervenience promises that individual identity deserves to be grounded in other qualitative properties. In this way, the judgment of identity based on the subject's actuality can construct a dynamic cognitive pathway of “bottom-up”, which can provide cognitive references for finding the criterion of individual identity.