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Full Idea
If identity is problematic, it is difficult to see how the problem could be resolved, since it is difficult to see how a thinker could have the conceptual resources with which to explain the concept of identity whilst lacking that concept itself.
Gist of Idea
Problems about identity can't even be formulated without the concept of identity
Source
Harold Noonan (Identity [2009], §1)
Book Ref
'Stanford Online Encyclopaedia of Philosophy', ed/tr. Stanford University [plato.stanford.edu], p.2
A Reaction
I don't think I accept this. We can comprehend the idea of a mind that didn't think in terms of identities (at least for objects). I suppose any relation of a mind to the world has to distinguish things in some way. Does the Parmenidean One have identity?
| 16015 | Problems about identity can't even be formulated without the concept of identity [Noonan] |
| 16014 | It is controversial whether only 'numerical identity' allows two things to be counted as one [Noonan] |
| 16017 | Identity is usually defined as the equivalence relation satisfying Leibniz's Law [Noonan] |
| 16016 | Identity definitions (such as self-identity, or the smallest equivalence relation) are usually circular [Noonan] |
| 16020 | Identity can only be characterised in a second-order language [Noonan] |
| 16018 | Indiscernibility is basic to our understanding of identity and distinctness [Noonan] |
| 16019 | Leibniz's Law must be kept separate from the substitutivity principle [Noonan] |
| 16024 | I could have died at five, but the summation of my adult stages could not [Noonan] |
| 16023 | Stage theorists accept four-dimensionalism, but call each stage a whole object [Noonan] |