Abstract
In a myriad of ways and contexts, we make and rely upon claims of identity in our dealings with ordinary objects – including other people. By “ordinary objects” I mean the material things that we encounter in our daily experience of the world, and that constitute a large component of that experience. We eat at tables, chew bread, sit on chairs, tap key boards, play and listen to musical instruments, travel in planes, trains and boats, swim in pools and rivers, and interact in various ways with other people and animals. Moreover, for both theoretical (conceptual) and practical reasons, we assume both that these objects have some kind of continuing identity, and that we could – if we wanted or needed to – make claims of identity in regard to them.
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Notes
- 1.
The idea that material objects have such temporal parts or stages has been called “perdurance”, in contrast to the more intuitive view that such objects endure through all times of their existence (Noonan and Curtis 2014).
- 2.
See Wiggins (2001, pp. 30–31), Olson (1997, chapter 5); Olson (1997, p. 95) cites Chisholm (1977, p. 169): “[I]n our theoretical thinking, we should be guided by those propositions we presuppose in our ordinary activity. They are propositions we have a right to believe. Or, somewhat more exactly, they are propositions which should be regarded as innocent, epistemically, until there is positive reason for thinking them guilty.”
- 3.
Noonan and Curtis (2014) state that “The notion of a criterion of identity was introduced into philosophical terminology by Frege… and strongly emphasised by Wittgenstein…. Exactly how it is to be interpreted and the extent of its applicability are still matters of debate.”
- 4.
The formal argument relies on a combination of the two defining principles mentioned in Chap. 1: the reflexivity of identity (a = a) and Leibniz’s Law (Wiggins 2001, pp. 25–27). It proceeds, via a series of elementary deductive steps – like any proof in algebra, geometry or logic. But I am sympathetic to those critics who are skeptical about the idea that such a contentious claim as “Identity A” – which has been rejected by a number of eminent philosophers – could be established so simply. In his argument, Wiggins helps himself to a version of Leibniz’s Law (identical objects share all their properties), namely, that if a is the same f as b (where f is a sortal concept as explained above), then a and b will share all their properties. But surely the relativist can simply deny this, citing the property of being the same g as b as a counter-example (a is the same g as a, so a should be the same g as b, but this is what the relativist denies). Wiggins (2001, p. 15), Gallois (2011), and Grandy (2007) question the claim that being the same f implies sharing all the same properties.
- 5.
The logical difference here is akin to the difference between (i) the modest but true claim: “Every person has one unique birthday”, and (ii) the much stronger – and patently false – claim: “There is 1 day which is the unique birthday of every person”. The difference, in logical terms, concerns the scope of the quantifiers “every” and “one”.
- 6.
Quantities of matter or stuff are similar to classes in mathematics, whose identity conditions depend precisely on the parts or members that constitute the whole. Since a quantity of sugar is nothing other than the sum of its parts, the loss of any one of those parts would destroy the (identity of) the whole. This is tantamount to declaring that quantities do not have any genuine identity conditions. When we look at the identity criteria for persons, the relationship between an individual person and the quantity of matter which “constitutes” it becomes problematic because the same quantity constitutes at least one “other” entity as well, viz. the human body. See Chap. 4 below.
- 7.
In the interest of historical and textual accuracy, what Heraclitus actually wrote was the following (in translation):
(“River 2”) “On those stepping into rivers staying the same other and other waters flow.”
One commentator has pointed out that this needs to be interpreted in the context of Heraclitus’ overall philosophical stance, which may be described as “the coincidence of opposites” or “unity in the world of change” (Graham 2011). And, indeed, this statement does seem to appeal both to something staying the same (either the river or the person stepping into it), and to something (the water) changing into something else (other), i.e. another body of water. What is important here is that the concepts of persistence and change are conceptually inter-dependent: as I remarked earlier in connection with the photo example, the notion of change involves the idea that some (one) thing has changed, i.e. that the thing in question persists, at least during the period of change. (When I change the color of my wall by painting it, it is the very same wall, otherwise what else is it that has changed?).
- 8.
This is an instance of Wiggins’ “Only a and b” rule, according to which, when considering questions of identity between objects a and b, no other object is relevant (Wiggins 2001, p. 96).
- 9.
References
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Gallois, A. (2011). Identity over time. In E. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-time/
Graham, D. (2011). Heraclitus. In E. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heraclitus/
Grandy, R. (2007). Artifacts: Parts and principles. In E. Margolis & S. Laurence (Eds.), Creations of the mind: Theories of artifacts and their representation (pp. 18–32). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Noonan, H., & Curtis, B. (2014) Identity. In E. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity/
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Quine, W. (1969). Ontological relativity and other essays. New York: Columbia University Press.
Wiggins, D. (2001). Sameness and substance renewed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Splitter, L.J. (2015). Identity in the World of Objects and Their Kinds. In: Identity and Personhood. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-481-8_3
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