A material object is constituted by a sum of parts all of which are essential to the sum but some of which seem inessential to the object itself. Such object/sum of parts pairs include my body/its torso and appendages and my desk/its top, drawers, and legs. In these instances, we are dealing with objects and their components. But, fundamentally, we may also speak, as Locke does, of an object and its constitutive matter—a “mass of particles”—or even of that aggregate and (...) the sum of subatomic particles ‘making it up’. The “problem of material constitution” (henceforth, PMC) is generated by assuming inter alia that the members of any such pair are numerically identical, that is, that the constituted and the constituting are one and the same thing. (shrink)

Leibniz notoriously insisted that no two individuals differ solo numero, that is, by being primitively distinct, without differing in some property. The details of Leibniz’s own way of understanding and defending the principle –known as the principle of identity of indiscernibles (henceforth ‘the Principle’)—is a matter of much debate. However, in contemporary metaphysics an equally notorious and discussed issue relates to a case put forward by Max Black (1952) as a counter-example to any necessary and non-trivial version of the principle. (...) Black asks us to imagine, via one of the fictional characters of his dialogue, a world consisting solely of two completely resembling spheres, in a relational space. The supporter of the principle is then forced to admit that although there are ex hypothesi two objects in that universe, there is no property (except trivial ones), not even relational ones, to distinguish them, and hence the necessary version of the principle is falsified. In this essay I will argue that Black’s possible world, together with the dialectic between the potential friends and foes of the Principle as expounded by Black himself.. (shrink)

This paper re-examines the question of whether quirks of early human foetal development tell against the view (conceptionism) that we are human beings at conception. A zygote is capable of splitting to give rise to identical twins. Since the zygote cannot be identical with either human being it will become, it cannot already be a human being. Parallel concerns can be raised about chimeras in which two embryos fuse. I argue first that there are just two ways of dealing with (...) cases of fission and fusion and both seem to be available to the conceptionist. One is the Replacement View according to which objects cease to exist when they fission or fuse. The other is the Multiple Occupancy View – both twins may be present already in the zygote and both persist in a chimera. So, is the conceptionist position tenable after all? I argue that it is not. A zygote gives rise not only to a human being but also to a placenta – it cannot already be both a human being and a placenta. Neither approach to fission and fusion can help the conceptionist with this problem. But worse is in store. Both fission and fusion can occur before and after the development of the inner cell mass of the blastocyst – the entity which becomes the embryo proper. The idea that we become human beings with the arrival of the inner cell mass leads to bizarre results however we choose to accommodate fission and fusion. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to derive a perfectly general criterion of identity through time from Locke’s Principle, which says that two things of the same kind cannot occupy the same space at the same time. In this way, the paper pursues a suggestion made by Peter F. Strawson almost thirty years ago in an article called ‘Entity and Identity’. The reason why the potential of this suggestion has so far remained unrealized is twofold: firstly, the suggestion was never (...) properly developed by Strawson, and secondly, it seemed vulnerable to an objection that he himself raised against it. Consequently, the paper’s aim is to further develop Strawson’s suggestion, and to show that the result is not vulnerable to the objection that seemed fatal to its underdeveloped predecessor. In addition, the paper aims to defend Locke’s Principle against alleged counterexamples such as those produced by Leibniz, Fine and Hughes. (shrink)

Criteria of identity should mirror the identity relation in being reflexive, symmetrical, and transitive. However, this logical requirement is only rarely met by the criteria that we are most inclined to propose as candidates. The present paper addresses the question how such obvious candidates are best approximated by means of relations that have all of the aforementioned features, i.e., which are equivalence relations. This question divides into two more basic questions. First, what is to be considered a ‘best’ approximation. And (...) second, how can these best approximations be found? In answering these questions, we both rely on and constructively criticize ground-breaking work done by Timothy Williamson. Guiding ideas of our approach are that we allow approximations by means of overlapping equivalence-relations, and that closeness of approximation is measured in terms of the number of mistakes made by the approximation when compared to the obvious candidate criterion. (shrink)

When philosophers address personal identity, they usually explore numerical identity: what are the criteria for a person's continuing existence? When non-philosophers address personal identity, they often have in mind narrative identity: Which characteristics of a particular person are salient to her self-conception? This book develops accounts of both senses of identity, arguing that both are normatively important, and is unique in its exploration of a range of issues in bioethics through the lens of identity. Defending a biological view of our (...) numerical identity and a framework for understanding narrative identity, DeGrazia investigates various issues for which considerations of identity prove critical: the definition of death; the authority of advance directives in cases of severe dementia; the use of enhancement technologies; prenatal genetic interventions; and certain types of reproductive choices. He demonstrates the power of personal identity theory to illuminate issues in bioethics as they bring philosophical theory to life. (shrink)

The standard approach to the so-called paradoxes of identity has been to argue that these paradoxes do not essentially concern the notion of identity but rather betray misconceptions on our part regarding other metaphysical notions, like that of an object or a property. This paper proposes a different approach by pointing to an ambiguity in the identity predicate and arguing that the concept of identity that figures in many ordinary identity claims, including those that appear in the paradoxes, is not (...) the traditional philosophical concept but one that can be defined in terms of relevant similarity. This approach to the paradoxes will be argued to be superior to the standard one. (shrink)

The thesis that the necessary and the a priori are extensionally equivalent consists of two independent claims: 1) All a priori truths are necessary and 2) all necessary truths are a priori. In Naming and Necessity1 Saul A. Kripke gives examples of necessary but a posteriori truths, so he disagrees with the second leg of the thesis.2 His examples are of two types; on the one hand statements involving essential properties and on the other hand true identity statements. My concern (...) will be with examples of the second type and whether they refute (2). (2), however, is ambiguous and can mean one of three things. (shrink)

In this book, Eli Hirsch focuses on identity through time, first with respect to ordinary bodies, then underlying matter, and eventually persons.

In this paper, a general perspective on criteria of identity of kinds of objects is developed. The question of the admissibility of impredicative or circular identity criteria is investigated in the light of the view that is articulated. It is argued that in and of itself impredicativity does not constitute sufficient grounds for rejecting a putative identity criterion. The view that is presented is applied to Davidson's criterion of identity for events and to the structuralist criterion of identity of places (...) in a structure. (shrink)

No matter whether it is a discussion of nationhood, race, family, adolescence, or popular culture, identity is a mainstay in everyday conversations about who we ...

Strangers, Gods and Monster is a fascinating look at how human identity is shaped by three powerful but enigmatic forces. Often overlooked in accounts of how we think about ourselves and others, Richard Kearney skillfully shows, with the help of vivid examples and illustrations, how the human outlook on the world is formed by the mysterious triumvirate of strangers, gods and monsters. Throughout, Richard Kearney shows how strangers, gods and monsters do not merely reside in myths or fantasies but constitute (...) a central part of our cultural unconscious. Above all, he argues that until we understand better that the Other resides deep within ourselves, we can have little hope of understanding how our most basic fears and desires manifest themselves in the external world and how we can learn to live with them. (shrink)

Inspired in Quine's well known slogans “To be is to be the value of a variable” and "No entity without identity", we provide a way of enabling that non-individual entities (as characterized in the text) can also be values of variables of an adequate "regimented" language, once we consider a possible meaning of the background theory Quine reports to ground his view. In doing that, we show that there may exist also entities without identity, and emphasize the importance of paying (...) attention to the metalanguage of scientific theories, for they may be also fundamental in determining the theory's ontological commitment. (shrink)

Identity claims often look nonsensical because they apparently declaredistinct things to be identical. I argue that this appearance is notjust an artefact of grammar. We should be fictionalists about such claims,seeing them against the background of speakers' pretense that their wordssecure reference to a plurality of objects that are then declared to beidentical from within the pretense. I argue that it is the resultinginterpretative tension – arising from the fact that two things cannever be identical – that allows us to (...) understand the real point ofsuch statements. This view also offers a new solution to Fege's puzzleof the informativeness of identity statements. (shrink)

There has been much debate in philosophy about the relation between identity and distinctness on the one hand, and various forms of discernibility on the other. For instance, philosophers have debated the truth of the Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles (PII), which is naturally formulated using a second-order quantifier ranging over some class of properties of particular philosophical significance.

Taking into account significant developments in the metaphysical thinking of E. J. Lowe over the past 20 years, More Kinds of Being:A Further Study of ...

Locke notoriously included number amongst the primary qualities of bodies and was roundly criticized for doing so by Berkeley. Frege echoed some of Berkeley's criticisms in attacking the idea that ‘Number is a property of external things’, while defending his own view that number is a property of concepts. In the present paper, Locke's view is defended against the objections of Berkeley and Frege, and Frege's alternative view of number is criticized. More precisely, it is argued that numbers are assignable (...) to pluralities of individuals. However, it is also argued that Locke went too far in asserting that ‘Number applies itself to ... everything that either doth exist, or can be imagined’. (shrink)

I propose a fourfold categorisation of entities according to whether or not they possess determinate identity-conditions and whether or not they are determinately countable. Some entities – which I call ‘individual objects’ – have both determinate identity and determinate countability: for example, persons and animals. In the case of entities of a kind K belonging to this category, we are in principle always entitled to expect there to be determinate answers to such questions as ‘Is x the same K as (...) y?’ and ’How many Ks are there satisfying condition C?’, even if we may sometimes be unable in practice to discover what these answers are. But other entities apparently lack either determinate identity, or determinate countability, or both. In these terms I try to explain certain important ontological differences between familiar macroscopic objects and various rather more esoteric entities, such as the ‘particles’ of quantum physics, quantities of material stuff, and tropes or property instances. (shrink)

The eleven new papers in this volume address fundamental and interrelated philosophical issues concerning modality and identity, issues that were pivotal to the development of analytic philosophy in the twentieth century, and remain a key focus of debate in the twenty-first. Identity and Modality brings together leading researchers in metaphysics, the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of mathematics.

The essays collected in this volume address a range of issues that arise when the focus of philosophical reflection on identity is shifted from metaphysical to ...

A certain argument has been given in the literature to the effect that generalism (the view that all facts about all possible worlds can (in principle) be given in general terms, that is, without resorting to nonqualitative thisnesses) excludes transworld identitism (the view that there are numerical identities through possible worlds). It follows from this argument, among other things, that transworld identitism entails Scotistic haecceitism (acceptance of nonqualitative thisnesses), and that generalists subscribing to de reism (the view that there are (...) true modal statements de re) are committed to counterpartism (the view that sameness through worlds is not numerical identity). The purpose of this paper is to resist the argument in question by constructing generalist transworld identitism, that is, by providing an account involving identities through possible worlds, without resorting to nonqualitative thisnesses. (shrink)

The paper first distinguishes ontological priority from epistemological priority and unilateral ontic dependence. Then explications of ontological priority are offered in terms of the reducibility of the actual existence or identity of entities in one ontological category to the actual existence or identity of entities in another. These explications lead to incompatible orders of ontological priority for individuals, properties of individuals and states of affairs. Common to those orders is, however, that the primacy of the category of individuals is abandoned. (...) This primacy is challenged in the paper also by epistemological arguments, and an onto-anthropological explanation is offered for the very common but false idea that individuals are ontological prior to all other kinds of entities. Finally ontological priority is discussed with respect to a fully specified system of ontological categories. (shrink)

Wiggins’ third book on substance Sameness and Substance Renewed is renewing his second one, Samenes and Substance, from 1980. The renewal is substantial, and is summarized by author himself in the Preface: completely new chapters are added, like the one on vagueness and identity; some important ones are completely rewritten, and fertile ideas from Putnam and Kripke are incorporated into the argument, bringing it in line with mainstream views on meaning and reference. The book deserves to be reviewed as a (...) new work, so I shall refrain here from looking back to its already famous ancestor. (shrink)

This paper provides a defence of the account of partial resemblances between properties according to which such resemblances are due to partial identities of constituent properties. It is argued, first of all, that the account is not only required by realists about universals à la Armstrong, but also useful (of course, in an appropriately re-formulated form) for those who prefer a nominalistic ontology for material objects. For this reason, the paper only briefly considers the problem of how to conceive of (...) the structural universals first posited by Armstrong in order to explain partial resemblances, and focuses instead on criticisms that have been levelled against the theory (by Pautz, Eddon, Denkel and Gibb) and that apply regardless of one’s preferred ontological framework. The partial identity account is defended from these objections and, in doing so, a hitherto quite neglected connection—between the debate about partial similarity as partial identity and that concerning ontological finitism versus infinitism—is looked at in some detail. (shrink)

This paper offers a critical assessment of the current state of the debate about the identity and individuality of material objects. Its main aim, in particular, is to show that, in a sense to be carefully specified, the opposition between the Leibnizian ‘reductionist’ tradition based on discernibility and the sort of ‘primitivism’ that denies that facts of identity and individuality must be analysable has become outdated. In particular, it is argued that – contrary to a widespread consensus - ‘naturalised’ metaphysics (...) supports both the acceptability of non-qualitatively grounded (both ‘contextual’ and intrinsic) identity and a pluralistic approach to individuality and individuation. A case study is offered that focuses on non-relativistic quantum mechanics, in the context of which primitivism about identity and individuality, rather than being regarded as unscientific, is on the contrary suggested to be preferable to the complicated forms of reductionism that have recently been proposed. More generally, assuming a plausible form of anti-reductionism about scientific theories and domains, it is claimed that science can be regarded as compatible with, or even as suggesting, the existence of a series of equally plausible grades of individuality - the kind of individuality that prevails in a certain context and at a given level being ascertainable only on the basis of the specific scientific theory at hand. (shrink)

What is the self? And how does it relate to the body? In the second edition of Personal Identity, Harold Noonan presents the major historical theories of personal identity, particularly those of Locke, Leibniz, Butler, Reid and Hume. Noonan goes on to give a careful analysis of what the problem of personal identity is, and its place in the context of more general puzzles about identity. He then moves on to consider the main issues and arguments which are the subject (...) of current debate, including the work of Bernard Williams and Derek Parfit, and makes new and challenging interpretations of them. This new edition contains additional material assessing the biological approach which has become increasingly popular in recent years, and extends the treatment of indeterminate identity to take account of the epistemic view of vagueness. This book covers the problem of personal identity from its origin in Locke's work to the most recent debates in the philosophical literature, and will be invaluablereading for any student of the topic. (shrink)

One of the main problems of personal identity is supposed to be how we relate to our bodies. A few philosophers endorse what is called a 'bodily criterion of personal identity': they say that we are our bodies, or at any rate that our identity over time consists in the identity of our bodies. Many more deny this--typically on the grounds that we can imagine ourselves coming apart from our bodies. But both sides agree that the bodily criterion is an (...) important view which anyone thinking about personal identity must consider. (shrink)

Terence Parsons presents a lively and controversial study of philosophical questions about identity. Because many puzzles about identity remain unsolved, some people believe that they are questions that have no answers and that there is a problem with the language used to formulate them. Parsons explores a different possibility: that such puzzles lack answers because of the way the world is (or because of the way the world is not). He claims that there is genuine indeterminacy of identity in the (...) world. He articulates such a view in detail and defends it from a host of criticisms. (shrink)

Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Volume 0, Issue 0, Page 1-19, Ahead of Print.

As virulent nationalism increases in Europe and th debate surrounding political correctness continues to rage in the US, this volume provides a theoretical analysis of these events and the questions they raise for critical theory.

Ontologies are being used by information scientists in order to facilitate the sharing of meaningful information. However, computational ontologies are problematic in that they often decontextualize information. The semantic content of information is dependent upon the context in which it exists and the experience through which it emerges. For true semantic interoperability to occur among diverse information systems, within or across domains, information must remain contextualized. In order to bring more context to computational ontologies, we introduce culture as an essential (...) concept for information science. Culture helps to focus our attention on and make meaning of relevant extrapersonal structures and their qualities and dimensions that comprise the context and background of the world. In our approach, culture is integral to the study of semantics and, consequently, the study of ontologies and information technologies. The meaning we make of entities and phenomena in the world is always shaped by our cultural experience. If we understand culture as the emergent interplay of intrapersonal cognitive structures and extrapersonal structures of the world, then the notion of cognitive and cultural schemas becomes essential to understanding ontology and the ways in which we might achieve authentic semantic interoperability among diverse information systems. We explore the nature of ontologies and reconceptualize them as cultural schemas. Our proposal is an alternative to the historical path from philosophical ontology to computational ontologies as one that adheres primarily to the notion of ontology as a categorization and classification system. The obvious implication for ontology as categorization is that there is a single objective world that exists and that it can be described as entirely separate from the person observing it. We draw upon Heidegger’s examination of ontology to ground ontology in a phenomenological perspective, enabling it to remain flexible and adaptable and to accommodate context. (shrink)

The following statement (A) is usually abbreviated with symbols: (A) There are items X and Y, each is F, X is not identical to Y, and everything F is identical to X or is identical to Y. (A) is neither necessary nor sufficient for the existence of exactly two distinct things that are F. Some things are neither identical nor distinct. The difference between distinctness and nonidentity makes a difference in asking questions about counting, constitution, and persistence.

There are well-known quasi-formal arguments that identity is a "strict" relation in at least the following three senses: (1) There is a single identity relation and a single distinctness relation; (2) There are no contingent cases of identity or distinctness; and (3) There are no vague or indeterminate cases of identity or distinctness. However, the situation is less clear cut than it at first may appear. There is a natural formal theory of identity that is very close to the standard (...) classical theory but which does not validate the formal analogues of (1)-(3). The core idea is simple: We weaken the Principle of the Indiscernibility of Identicals from a conditional to an entailment and we adopt a weakly classical logic. This paper investigates this weakly classical theory of identity (and related theories) and discusses its philosophical rami cations. It argues that we can accept a reasonable theory of identity without committing ourselves to the uniqueness, necessity, or determinacy of identity. (shrink)

Marya Schechtman takes issue with analytic philosophy's emphasis on the first sort of question to the exclusion of the second.

We are witnessing a Europe in turmoil, tormented by the violence of ethnic and nationalist struggles which legitimate themselves in the name of identity. This anthology explores the assumptions of identity by disassembling old myths and fictions of unity in relation to the subject, politics and art. Other than identity offers the possibility of rethinking the concept and introducing instead notions of self and other, identity politics and aesthetics. Through theoretical and concrete examples, this study exemplifies the best of current (...) thinking concerning identity. It marks a new venture in multi-disciplinarity, bringing together writers identified with different discursive fields and visual artists to produce work specifically for this publication. Not only will each chapter be a contribution to particular specialist genres but the collection as a whole will offer new possibilities for rethinking identity. The multifarious approach will appeal to a wide spectrum of disciplines and discourses and to anyone with an interest in what is traditionally identified as culture. (shrink)

Baxter (Australas J Philos 79:449–464, 2001 ) proposes an ingenious solution to the problem of instantiation based on his theory of cross-count identity. His idea is that where a particular instantiates a universal it shares an aspect with that universal. Both the particular and the universal are numerically identical with the shared aspect in different counts. Although Baxter does not say exactly what a count is, it appears that he takes ways of counting as mysterious primitives against which different numerical (...) identities are defined. In contrast, I defend the idea—suggested, though not quite endorsed, by Baxter himself—that counts are independent dimensions of numerical identity. Different ways of counting are explained by the existence of these different sorts of identity (i.e., counts). For the instantiation of a universal by a particular, I propose one dimension concerned with the individuation of particulars (the p-count) and another dimension concerned with the individuation of universals (the u-count). On that basis, I give a clear definition of cross-count identity that explains its asymmetrical nature (i.e., the fact that particulars instantiate universals, but not vice versa). I extend the theory to a third dimension—that of time, or the t-count—and thereby defend Baxter’s ideas on change, and the contingency of instantiation. Baxter (Mind 97(388):575–582, 1988 ; Australas J Philos 79:449–464, 2001 ) proposes the related idea of composition as (cross-count) identity. Parts are individually cross-count identical with the wholes that they constitute, and they collectively share all aspects across counts with those wholes. I propose an innovation by which totality is shared distinctness across counts. The theory applies to both the totality of particulars that instantiate any given universal, and the totality of parts that constitute any given whole. I argue that this has several advantages over Armstrong’s view, which is based on a dubious external totalling relation . I also argue that Armstrong’s theory of numbers (or quantities) as internal relations ought to be rejected in favour of an account based on identity and distinctness. The paper concludes with a careful analysis of external relations in Baxter’s framework. I argue that we must recognise one further dimension of identity in order to differentiate between, e.g., the aspects of Abelard insofar as he loves Heloise and Abelard insofar as he loves Isobel. Each of these aspects is identical with Abelard and identical with loving-by , yet they must be in some way distinct. I therefore propose the r-count, in which multiple distinct relational properties are the very same relation (-part). The existence of these four independent dimensions explains the fact that particulars, universals, relations, and times are fundamentally different sorts of things in the ontology. Each is individuated with respect to a different dimension of identity. (shrink)

It is argued that current solutions to the question of how to individuate events do not work. Jonathan Bennett's thesis that the indeterminacy here is only semantic, not ontological, is refuted. An alternative account of why events resemble facts (although their identity criteria are less fine-grained) is defended.

Harry Frankfurt's philosophy of action as a prolegomenon to the Zhuangzi.

Machine generated contents note: Introduction; 1. Identity of meaning Adrian Poole; 2. Identity and the law Lionel Bently; 3. Species-identity Peter Crane; 4. Mathematical identity Marcus Du Sautoy; 5. Immunological identity Philippa Marrack; 6. Visualizing identity Ludmilla Jordanova; 7. Musical identity Christopher Hogwood; 8. Identity and the mind Raymond Tallis; Notes on the contributors; Index.

We investigate a variant of the variable convention proposed at Tractatus 5.53ff for the purpose of eliminating the identity sign from logical notation. The variant in question is what Hintikka has called the strongly exclusive interpretation of the variables, and turns out to be what Ramsey initially (and erroneously) took to be Wittgenstein's intended method. We provide a tableau calculus for this identity-free logic, together with soundness and completeness proofs, as well as a proof of mutual interpretability with first-order logic (...) with identity. (shrink)

We investigate a rst-order predicate logic based on Wittgenstein's suggestion to express identity of object by identity of sign, and difference of objects by difference of signs. Hintikka has shown that predicate logic can indeed be set up in such a way; we show that it can be done nicely. More specically, we provide a perspicuous cut-free sequent calculus, as well as a Hilbert-type calculus, for Wittgensteinian predicate logic and prove soundness and completeness theorems.

Wittgensteinian predicate logic (W-logic) is characterized by the requirement that the objects mentioned within the scope of a quantifier be excluded from the range of the associated bound variable. I present a sound and complete tableaux calculus for this logic and discuss issues of translatability between Wittgensteinian and standard predicate logic in languages with and without individual constants. A metalinguistic co-denotation predicate, akin to Frege’s triple bar of the Begriffsschrift, is introduced and used to bestow the full expressive power of (...) first-order logic with identity on W-logic in the presence of constants. (shrink)

Like '&', '=' is no term; it represents no extrasentential property. It marks an atomic, nonpredicative, declarative structure, sentences true solely by codesignation. Identity (its necessity and total reflexivity, its substitution rule, its metaphysical vacuity) is the objectual face of codesignation. The syntax demands pure reference, without predicative import for the asserted fact. 'Twain is Clemens' is about Twain, but nothing is predicated of him. Its informational value is in its 'metailed' semantic content: the fact of codesignation (that 'Twain' names (...) Clemens) that explains what fact it asserts and why it is necessary. Critiques of concepts of rigidity and elimination of singular terms result. (shrink)

In this book, which thoroughly revises and greatly expands his classic work Sameness and Substance (1980), David Wiggins retrieves and refurbishes in the light of twentieth-century logic and logical theory certain conceptions of identity, of substance and of persistence through change that philosophy inherits from its past. In this new version, he vindicates the absoluteness, necessity, determinateness and all or nothing character of identity against rival conceptions. He defends a form of essentialism that he calls individuative essentialism, and then a (...) form of realism that he calls conceptualist realism. In a final chapter he advocates a human being-based conception of the identity and individuation of persons, arguing that any satisfactory account of personal memory must make reference to the life of the rememberer himself. This important book will appeal to a wide range of readers in metaphysics, philosophical logic, and analytic philosophy. (shrink)