ABSTRACT
The position that David Wiggins outlines is of opposition to the thesis of the relativity of identity. This consists in arguing that in reply to the Aristotelian question what was the thing that ran, a series of different and equally correct sortal answers can be given. In his work Sameness and Substance Wiggins develops a neo-Aristotelian theory of individuation which is useful to the enquiry. The social theoretic implications of the version of special will be expanded on showing how Karl Marx uses particular Aristotelian formulations. Social explanation in the Marxist tradition requires the elucidation of inherent tendencies to particular sorts of change. One distinctively Aristotelian element to such elucidation arises from the close relationship between natural kinds and their nomological basis. Both Aristotelian and Hegelian metaphysics, denuded of their ontology, become important elements in the methodology of critical science.
