 A line of argument that could be developed on this basis suggests that if indeed there are such things as essential particularized properties that are “possessed” by composite objects, then they are in fact to be identified with those objects. But it would be very problematic, quite generally, to argue that wherever items x and y are mutually existentially dependent as defined by  (EDR),  they are identical. For instance, consider the relationship between Socrates and the temporally extended event or process that was his life. Clearly, in terms of (EDR), Socrates’s life dependsR for its existence upon Socrates—but so, plausibly, does his existence upon it: it is, for Socrates, what we might call an inalienable event. And yet there are things true of the life of Socrates that are not true of him and vice versa (for example, that it was so many years long, and that he weighed so many pounds)—so there is no question of their being identical. Even more strikingly, if we assume that numbers are necessary existents, and hence mutually existentially dependent, this line of thought would seem to entail that any two numbers are identical!