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Full Idea
The notion of sameness or identity that we are to elucidate is not that of any degree of qualitative similarity but of coincidence as a substance - a notion as primitive as predication.
Gist of Idea
We want to explain sameness as coincidence of substance, not as anything qualitative
Source
David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], Pre 2)
Book Ref
Wiggins,David: 'Sameness and Substance' [Blackwell 1980], p.4
A Reaction
This question invites an approach to identity through our descriptions of it, rather than to the thing itself. There is no problem in ontology of two substances being 'the same', because they are just one substance.
Related Idea
Idea 15969 Two things can never be identical, so there is no problem [Lewis]
| 12266 | 'Same' is mainly for names or definitions, but also for propria, and for accidents [Aristotle] |
| 12287 | Two identical things have the same accidents, they are the same; if the accidents differ, they're different [Aristotle] |
| 12288 | Numerical sameness and generic sameness are not the same [Aristotle] |
| 8650 | Things are the same if one can be substituted for the other without loss of truth [Leibniz] |
| 21315 | A tree remains the same in the popular sense, but not in the strict philosophical sense [Butler] |
| 15826 | There is 'loose' identity between things if their properties, or truths about them, might differ [Chisholm] |
| 11910 | Being 'the same' is meaningless, unless we specify 'the same X' [Geach] |
| 16999 | A vague identity may seem intransitive, and we might want to talk of 'counterparts' [Kripke] |
| 16494 | We want to explain sameness as coincidence of substance, not as anything qualitative [Wiggins] |