Who Is Not You? When Transworld Identity Reaches Its Limits

Who Is Not You? When Transworld Identity Reaches Its Limits

Philosophy

2026

Annabel Gloyn

Modal paradoxes suggest that if individuals could have been slightly different from how they actually are (tolerance), then they also could have been radically different (hypertolerance). Although these paradoxes have often been interpreted as requiring a unified solution, this project explores how a non-unified solution can be constructed so that the degree of change an individual undergoes becomes relevant to the force of the paradox. This is achieved under a variant of 'moderate haecceitism' which allows tolerance up until the individual changes the kind of thing that it is. In cases where the individual retains its kind, we can accept hypertolerance, whilst in cases where it changes its kind, we can reject the assumption of ‘necessitated tolerance’ by appealing to monstrous possible worlds, where at least one possible individual is intolerant.

Philosophy, Metaphysics, Modality, Identity, Haecceitism, Essentialism, Sortals