Absolute Identity and Criteria of Identity Concluded

Abstract

In Chapter Seven I began to discuss the notion of an absolute equivalence relation’s serving as a criterion of identity in the way explained in Chapter Six. It was established there that certain relations, e.g. same water and same man, either failed to satisfy condition (1) (i.e. failed to be absolute equivalence relations), or failed to satisfy condition (E) (so that no definite descriptions of the form “the man who is F at t”, “the water which is G at t” were satisfied); and I took this conclusion to entail, on the common-sense ground that descriptions of the forms “the man who is F at t”, “the water which is G at t” were in fact very often satisfied, that these relations failed to satisfy condition (1).