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Switch to: References
Citations of:
Objects and criteria of identity
In Bob Hale, Crispin Wright & Alexander Miller (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Language. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 990–1012 (1997)
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I discuss E. J. Lowe's conception of criteria of identity and sketch a different and, I think, more adequate conception. On my view, criteria of identity are some of the things we can do. They are what we do when distinguishing between single entities of the kind in question and pairs of entities of the relevant domain. And they enable us to make such distinctions because they are applicable to all single and to all pairs of entities of the relevant (...) |
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In this paper I look to develop a defence of “presentist temporal passage” that renders presentism immune from recent arguments due to Eric Olson. During the course of the paper, I also offer comment on a recent reply to Olson’s argument due to Ian Phillips. I argue that it is not clear that Phillips’ arguments succeed. |
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Much of the debate about identity in recent decades has been about personal identity, and specifically about personal identity over time, but identity generally, and the identity of things of other kinds, have also attracted attention. Various interrelated problems have been at the centre of discussion, but it is fair to say that recent work has focussed particularly on the following areas: the notion of a criterion of identity; the correct analysis of identity over time, and, in particular, the disagreement (...) |
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Non-Cartesian substance dualism maintains that persons or selves are distinct from their organic physical bodies and any parts of those bodies. It regards persons as ‘substances’ in their own right, but does not maintain that persons are necessarily separable from their bodies, in the sense of being capable of disembodied existence. In this paper, it is urged that NCSD is better equipped than either Cartesian dualism or standard forms of physicalism to explain the possibility of mental causation. A model of (...) |
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Tarski's analysis of the concept of truth gives rise to a hierarchy of languages. Does this fragment the concept all the way to philosophical unacceptability? I argue it doesn't, drawing on a modification of Kaplan's theory of indexicals. |
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Sortal concepts are at the center of certain logical discussions and have played a significant role in solutions to particular problems in philosophy. Apart from logic and philosophy, the study of sortal concepts has found its place in specific fields of psychology, such as the theory of infant cognitive development and the theory of human perception. In this monograph, different formal logics for sortal concepts and sortal-related logical notions are characterized. Most of these logics are intensional in nature and possess, (...) |
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The aim of this note is to discuss the general form and role of identity criteria. We have taken two readings into consideration which express two different functions of identity criteria. The first expresses the epistemic function whilst the second deals with the ontological function. We argue that there are several problems related to the specification of both these functions. As a consequence, we conclude that identity criteria are not necessary to provide ontological legitimacy. |
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The Weak Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles (weak PII), states that numerically distinct items must be discernible by a symmetrical and irreflexive relation. Recently, some authors have proposed that weak PII holds in non relativistic quantum mechanics, contradicting a long tradition claiming PII to be simply false in that theory. The question that arises then is: are relations allowed in the scope of PII? In this paper, we propose that quantum mechanics does not help us in deciding matters concerning (...) |
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Material objects extend through space by having different spatial parts in different places. But how do they persist through time? According to some philosophers, things have temporal parts as well as spatial parts: accepting this is supposed to help us solve a whole bunch of metaphysical problems, and keep our philosophy in line with modern physics. Other philosophers disagree, arguing that neither metaphysics nor physics give us good reason to believe in temporal parts. |
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Is it possible to characterize the sortal essence of Fs for a sortal concept F solely in terms of a criterion of identity C for F? That is, can the question ‘What sort of thing are Fs?’ be answered by saying that Fs are essentially those things whose identity can be assessed in terms of C? This paper presents a case study supporting a negative answer to these questions by critically examining the neo-Fregean suggestion that cardinal numbers can be fully (...) |
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The concept of indiscernibility in a structure is analysed with the aim of emphasizing that in asserting that two objects are indiscernible, it is useful to consider these objects as members of (the domain of) a structure. A case for this usefulness is presented by examining the consequences of this view to the philosophical discussion on identity and indiscernibility in quantum theory. |
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The property theory of musical works says that each musical work is a property that is instantiated by its occurrences, that is, the work's performances and playings. The property theory provides ontological explanations very similar to those given by its popular cousin, the type/token theory of musical works, but it is both simpler and stronger. However, type/token theorists often dismiss the property theory. In this essay, I formulate a version of the property theory that identifies each type (thus, each musical (...) |
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Following W.V. Quine’s lead, many metaphysicians consider ontology to be concerned primarily with existential questions of the form, “What is there?”. Moreover, if the position advanced by Rudolf Carnap, in his seminal essay, “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology ”, is correct, then many of these existential ontological questions ought to be classified as either trivially answerable or as “pseudo-questions”. One may justifiably wonder, however, whether the Quinean and Carnapian perspective on ontology really does justice to many of the most central concerns (...) |
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Identity is ordinarily taken to be a relation defined on all and only objects. This consensus is challenged by Agustín Rayo, who seeks to develop an analogue of the identity sign that can be flanked by sentences. This paper is a critical exploration of the attempted generalization. First the desired generalization is clarified and analyzed. Then it is argued that there is no notion of content that does the desired philosophical job, namely ensure that necessarily equivalent sentences coincide in this (...) |
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Summary of Anna Pilatova’s doctoral thesis A User’s Guide to Proper Names, Their Semantics And Pragmatics The origins of this work go all the way back to my reading of Kripke’s Naming and Necessity in 1993. It had left me with a feeling of dissatisfaction that lingered long enough to inspire my MA thesis (on Internalism and Externalism in the Theories of Reference), and finally inspired the current work. Over time, I became acquainted with other influential accounts of reference of (...) |
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I defend the view that our ontology divides into categories, each with its own canonical way of identifying and distinguishing the objects it encompasses. For instance, I argue that natural numbers are identified and distinguished by their positions in the number sequence, and physical bodies, by facts having to do with spatiotemporal continuity. I also argue that objects belonging to different categories are ipso facto distinct. My arguments are based on an analysis of reference, which ascribes to reference a richer (...) |
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We shall distinguish between sortal predication and standard predication. The former kind of predication necessarily involves sortal concepts but the latter, as it is customarily viewed, does not. It is generally thought that the only essential occurrence of a concept in a standard predication is the concept being predicated. In this paper, we shall put forward an alternative view. We shall propose to understand standard predication as a cognitive act essentially requiring sortal concepts. We shall call this view conceptual predication (...) |
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The aim of this paper is to argue that some objections raised by Jantzen (Synthese, 2010 ) against the separation of the concepts of ‘counting’ and ‘identity’ are misled. We present a definition of counting in the context of quasi-set theory requiring neither the labeling nor the identity and individuality of the counted entities. We argue that, contrary to what Jantzen poses, there are no problems with the technical development of this kind of definition. As a result of being able (...) |
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How can we acquire knowledge of metaphysical modality? How can someone come to know that he could have been elsewhere right now, or an accountant rather than a philosophy teacher, but could not have been a turnip? Jago proposes an account of a route to knowledge of the way things could have been and must be. He argues that we can move to knowledge of metaphysical modality from knowledge about essence. Curtis rejects Jago’s explanation. It cannot, he argues, explain our (...) |
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In the debate on personal identity, different criteria of identity are proposed and defended. The criteria of identity have usually been taken to state the necessary and sufficient conditions of identity and are interpreted as providing truth conditions for relevant identity statements. The Simple View of personal identity is the thesis that there are no noncircular and informative metaphysical criteria of identity for persons. The paper intends to first deliver a precise and general formulation of the Simple View, and, second, (...) |
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Recently, several authors have claimed to have found graph-theoretic counterexamples to the Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles. In this paper, I argue that their counterexamples presuppose a certain view of what unlabeled graphs are, and that this view is optional at best. |
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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 (...) |
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The object of this paper is to suggest how the Frege–Dummettian notions of criterion of identity and criterion of application can be put to work within Putnam’s account of reference for natural kind terms in “Meaning of ‘Meaning’ ”. By doing so, some light can be shed on Putnam’s earlier views on “necessity relative to a body of knowledge” as well as his later views on sortal identity. If the Frege–Dummettian criteria are indeed at work within Putnam’s account, then we (...) |
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Some platonists truly agonize over the ontological commitments which their platonism demands of them. Peter van Inwagen, for example, confesses candidly,I am happy to admit that I am uneasy about believing in the existence of ‘causally irrelevant’ objects. The fact that abstract objects, if they exist, can be neither causes or [sic] effects is one of the many features of abstract objects that make nominalism so attractive. I should very much like to be a nominalist, but I don't see how (...) |
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