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W0
M
P
x1
(+)
+

Figure 8.9
W0
M
P
x2
+
(+)

Figure 8.10
It is clear that the x appearing in both worlds is not the same individual. Whichever of the two worlds is taken as a world of reference in respect to the other, the two individuals x1 and x2 will appear not as reciprocal variants but as independent supernumeraries. It is clear that in these world structures 'essential' properties are co-textually established insofar as they are textually diagnostic.
8.6.3. Transworld Identity
The real problem of transworld identity is to single out something as persistent through alternative states of affairs. That is nothing other than the Kantian problem of the constancy of the object. But in making this observation Bonomi (1975:133) remarks that the idea of the object must be linked to the one of its congruence between multiple localizations. Thus transworld identity has to be analyzed from the phenomenological point of view of the Husserlian notion of Abschattung, that is, of the different profiles I can assign to the object of my experience. To establish a profile means to outline a textual topic. 14
Chisholm (1967) proposes a supposed W0 inhabited by Adam (who lived 930 years) and Noah (who lived 950 years). Then Chisholm wittily begins to outline different worlds in which the two individuals step by step respectively increase and decrease their lifetime to reach a world in which not only Adam lived 950 years and Noah 930 years, but in which Adam is called Noah, and vice versa. Chisholm, once he has arrived at the puzzling question of their identity, skims over the only possible answer, since he does not attempt to establish the essential properties to be taken into account. The answer depends on the question, more exactly on that implicit or explicit question which establishes the discoursive topic. Had the experiment of Chisholm concerned the first man, no change in age or name would have altered this essential (or diagnostic) property taken in W0 as the only point of reference.

 
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