Numerical identity is standardly considered to be a relation between things. This means that two things are identical if they are only one thing. It is not only Wittgenstein who finds this claim rather odd. Another possibility is to understand identity as a relation between names which denote the same thing; or as a relation between the senses of those names which are modes of presentation of the same thing. Or identity statements can be considered as expressions of the fact (...) that there is exactly one thing that has certain characteristics. These conceptions are, in fact, closely interlinked. There are some rather straightforward proposals on how to give these approaches a formal pattern in relative harmony with classical logic. What is important to emphasize and keep in mind is the specific character of identity and essential dissimilarities between identity and relations of objects in logic. (shrink)

Although Kripke’s œuvre has had a major impact on analytic philosophy and nearly every aspect of his studies has been thoroughly examined, this does not hold for his schmidentity argument, which, so far, has been widely neglected. To the extent to which it has been treated at all, it has been for the most part radically misunderstood. I hold that this argument, in its correctly reconstructed form, has general relevance for a treatment of Frege’s Puzzle and points towards a fundamental (...) methodological restriction for philosophy of language and especially for semantics, as far as informativity and the general topic of cognitive significance are concerned. To show this, I will briefly set out the context of the schmidentity argument and, in Sects. 2 and 4, sketch a reconstruction thereof, including some criticisms of the argument, and an excursion about Kit Fine’s semantic relationism, which stands in stark contrast to this paper’s central claim. Moreover, I will draw a genuinely new and probably quite unexpected conclusion from all the above, to finally give a glimpse at a bigger picture of where this conclusion should lead our thinking about a theoretical treatment of informativity and a linguistic expression’s cognitive value. (shrink)

The original article has been corrected. The author also wants to add the following addendum to the article.

Some​ ​propositions​ ​are​ ​not​ ​only​ ​true,​ ​but​ ​could​ ​not​ ​have​ ​been​ ​otherwise. This​ ​thesis​ ​is​ ​about​ ​modality​ ​and​ ​the​ ​philosophy​ ​of​ ​language.​ ​Its​ ​centrepiece​ ​is​ ​a​ ​new​ ​account​ ​of the​ ​conditions​ ​under​ ​which​ ​a​ ​proposition​ ​is​ ​necessarily​ ​true​ ​in​ ​the​ ​above​ ​sense.