Locke's Principle is an Applicable Criterion of Identity

Noûs 47 (4):697-705 (2011)
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Abstract

According to Locke’s Principle, material objects are identical if and only if they are of the same kind and once occupy the same place at the same time. There is disagreement about whether this principle is true, but what is seldom disputed is that, even if true, the principle fails to constitute an applicable criterion of identity. In this paper, I take issue with two arguments that have been offered in support of this claim by arguing (i) that we can have knowledge of past whereabouts, and so verify the right hand side of Locke’s Principle, without having to assess concrete identity claims first; (ii) that even under conditions of incomplete knowledge of past whereabouts we can use Locke’s Principle to decide concrete identity problems.

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2011-12-30

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Rafael De Clercq
Lingnan University

Citations of this work

Locke's Place‐Time‐Kind Principle.Jessica Gordon-Roth - 2015 - Philosophy Compass 10 (4):264-274.

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References found in this work

Naming and Necessity: Lectures Given to the Princeton University Philosophy Colloquium.Saul A. Kripke - 1980 - Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Edited by Darragh Byrne & Max Kölbel.
An essay concerning human understanding.John Locke - 1689 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Pauline Phemister.
Naming and Necessity.Saul Kripke - 1980 - Philosophy 56 (217):431-433.
New Essays on Human Understanding.Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - 1981 - New York: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Peter Remnant & Jonathan Bennett.
New Essays on Human Understanding.R. M. Mattern - 1984 - Philosophical Review 93 (2):315.

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