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The ontological status of the plane of haecceities

The relation between objects and properties can be also compared to that between descriptions in fiction (or theatre, see posts above) and real characters. Characters in fiction have no more than bundle identity: they are aggregate descriptions (general terms). Analogously, properties according to bundle theory act on concreta only because objects ought to satisfy them. The appeal to substrata is the appeal to the identity of objects (or events, or states of affairs) that is immanent to whatever else exists. Accounts of the substrata that appeal to indexicals (demonstratives like haecceitas or proper names) make use of tracking mechanisms within concreta. The previous post closed with the idea that concreta A-series time. In fact, concrete objects can track concrete objects. I think this is somehow because they are not immune to whatever else is concrete, concrete is what responds to what is concrete. The response can be understood in terms of capture, in Leibnizian terms: concrete objects are orchestrated from above, by something that transcend them. No contact between concreta (say between monads) is needed as everything is orchestrated from the order of the world. Leibniz has a way for objects to meet others and influence them while being immune to them (without being affected by them). Concreta are then fully reduced to whatever transcends them. Leibniz fully exorcises the plane of haecceities.

Deleuze slogan in Le Pli, "from clausure to capture" could be a guide to move from Leibniz's exorcism of the concrete to an ontology with full-blown concrete objects. But in order to do that, capture has to be understood in terms akin to what I call plot metaphysics (contact between things is irreducible to any ontological order). Plot metaphysics is really about the ontological status of the plane of haecceities. From clausure to capture could be understood then as a guide to include the plane in Leibniz picture. This seems at least true in the cases of captures understood in the way Deleuze and Guattari do in Mille Plateaux and in the way Latour does in Irreductions.

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