Why Are You You?

I just attended a lecture by Stephen Priest, a lecturer here at Oxford, where he discussed what he took to be philosophical questions that needed theological answers. He had three such questions to discuss, the first of which was "Why are you you?".

Of course, he dismissed the fact that this was a silly question and defended that it has a non-trivial meaning. He then went on to tell a story about how what 'you' really are is a 'subjective viewpoint' or 'absolute interiority' (can you say Continentalist?) - in short, a unique phenomenological perspective. And so, being that this is the case, what 'you' really are isn't a physical body or a set of mental phenomena. He concluded therefore, that the question "Why are you you?" is an interesting one because of the disconnect between the 'subjective viewpoint' and a 'psycho-physical object'. Fair enough, perhaps.

As far as I can tell, either the question (a) expresses a tautology and so is useless or (b) can't be given any meaningful answer. (a) and (b) correspond to how one chooses to have the sentence refer. If the the word 'you' is a rigid designator for what 'you really are' (according to Preist), then the question "Why is this subjective viewpoint this subjective viewpoint?" is a pointless one: it expresses a tautology and has told us absolutely nothing.

If the word 'you' is not rigidly designating - and this is the option that Priest is opting for - then the real question is "Why is this subjective viewpoint inherent in this psycho-physical object?" If this is the question that Priest means to be asking, then it looks like this won't be such a trivial question; at least, not on the face - I suppose it could be questioned whether the two aren't interconnected in a deep way that constitutes a FAPP-identity.

But if that's the question Preist means to be asking, then that is the question to which Priest supposedly has an educated answer to; when I raised this concern during the Q&A, he responded that he did in fact have an answer: more or less "read my new book". But I am seriously skeptical of the very possibility of giving a meaningful answer here. What could one say about why this subjective viewpoint is associated with this psycho-physical object that was informative?

Now, Priest does invoke God in his discussion. But he is a Deist, not a Theist. And as this is the case, I can't see any move that would make such a connection (between a viewpoint and a psycho-physical object) explained. The Theist may say "this subjective viewpoint is with this psycho-physical object because God knew that having it arranged thusly would produce the most faithful and holy person possible". But this kind of answer certainly isn't available for Priest. And short of this kind of (seemingly ad hoc) answer, I don't see how one could answer the question meaningfully in such a way that the answer didn't turn out trivial in one sense or another.

The Plague of Predicative Essentialism

I can't accept any theory that posits the essence of an object to be comprised of, or reducible to a set of properties.

The essence of an object is that from which all the properties of an object flow.

The following is an appropriate picture: An infinite amount of essences exist, none differing solo numero and all being in the company of one another. Their being present to one another results in each of them contributing to a relational situs wherein each of the essences exhibit some set of characteristics resulting from the relationship of it to every other essence in its presence. Each essence is, in virtue of its particular relationship to every other object, clothed in a certain quiddity comprised of a total set of properties. Objects are hylomorphic - equally essence and properties, haecceity and suchness, non-qualitative and qualitative, individual and communal, non-relational and relational.

Any account wherein properties are considered primitive must view the essence of an object as ineffectually inactive or else a derivative entity. But such an account cannot explain how these properties can be their own de re foundation or how they can set a non-trivial limit to and specification of the property possession of an object. In short, the effects of primitivising properties is that all investigation of the nature of objects must be left to logical analysis. Possibility will be nothing more than non-contradiction between the predicates of an object and the predicates comprising some conceptual context. Necessity will be merely the impossibility of non-contradiction between the predicates of an object and the predicates comprising some conceptual context. But diamonds and boxes are only conceptual aids.

Real possibility flows from the essence of an object - it declares a property possible just in case the property is compossible with every other property in some conceptual context and there is some property that the object has from which, if it were to be included in this context,it would follow that the property in question would be exemplified. This is the real character of Leibnizian worlds - one which respects the pregnancy of properties with determinate properties founded in the relationship of the 'concept' of the object in respect to every other object.