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Single Idea 16494

[filed under theme 9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 9. Sameness ]

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]

The 29 ideas from 'Sameness and Substance'

16492 Individuation needs accounts of identity, of change, and of singling out [Wiggins]
16493 Individuation can only be understood by the relation between things and thinkers [Wiggins]
16496 Singling out extends back and forward in time [Wiggins]
16495 The only singling out is singling out 'as' something [Wiggins]
16494 We want to explain sameness as coincidence of substance, not as anything qualitative [Wiggins]
17529 Maybe the concept needed under which things coincide must also yield a principle of counting [Wiggins]
16497 Leibniz's Law (not transitivity, symmetry, reflexivity) marks what is peculiar to identity [Wiggins]
16498 Identity cannot be defined, because definitions are identities [Wiggins]
16499 A restored church is the same 'church', but not the same 'building' or 'brickwork' [Wiggins]
16502 Identity is primitive [Wiggins]
16503 'What is it?' gives the kind, nature, persistence conditions and identity over time of a thing [Wiggins]
16501 In Aristotle's sense, saying x falls under f is to say what x is [Wiggins]
16505 By the principle of Indiscernibility, a symmetrical object could only be half of itself! [Wiggins]
16506 Every determinate thing falls under a sortal, which fixes its persistence [Wiggins]
17530 The sortal needed for identities may not always be sufficient to support counting [Wiggins]
16510 Nominal essences don't fix membership, ignore evolution, and aren't contextual [Wiggins]
16509 Natural kinds are well suited to be the sortals which fix substances [Wiggins]
16511 A 'conception' of a horse is a full theory of what it is (and not just the 'concept') [Wiggins]
16512 Semantic facts are preferable to transcendental philosophical fiction [Wiggins]
16515 A thing begins only once; for a clock, it is when its making is first completed [Wiggins]
16514 Artefacts are individuated by some matter having a certain function [Wiggins]
16517 Priests prefer the working ship; antiquarians prefer the reconstruction [Wiggins]
16518 We conceptualise objects, but they impinge on us [Wiggins]
16521 A is necessarily A, so if B is A, then B is also necessarily A [Wiggins]
16522 It is hard or impossible to think of Caesar as not human [Wiggins]
16523 Realist Conceptualists accept that our interests affect our concepts [Wiggins]
16524 Conceptualism says we must use our individuating concepts to grasp reality [Wiggins]
16525 Our sortal concepts fix what we find in experience [Wiggins]
16526 Animal classifications: the Emperor's, fabulous, innumerable, like flies, stray dogs, embalmed…. [Wiggins]