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Single Idea 6053

[filed under theme 9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 2. Defining Identity ]

Full Idea

Identity has a universality and basicness that is hard to overstate; concepts don't get more basic than this - or more indispensable.

Gist of Idea

Identity is as basic as any concept could ever be

Source

Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1)

Book Ref

McGinn,Colin: 'Logical Properties' [OUP 2003], p.9

A Reaction

I agree with this. It seems to me to follow that the natural numbers are just as basic, because they are entailed by the separateness of the identities of things. And the whole of mathematics is the science of the patterns within these numbers.

The 14 ideas with the same theme [whether identity can be defined - and how]:

22322 You can't define identity by same predicates, because two objects with same predicates is assertable [Wittgenstein]
17594 We can paraphrase 'x=y' as a sequence of the form 'if Fx then Fy' [Quine]
10797 Substitutivity won't fix identity, because expressions may be substitutable, but not refer at all [Marcus (Barcan)]
9848 Content is replaceable if identical, so replaceability can't define identity [Dummett, by Dummett]
9842 Frege introduced criteria for identity, but thought defining identity was circular [Dummett]
11831 The formal properties of identity are reflexivity and Leibniz's Law [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]
16502 Identity is primitive [Wiggins]
16015 Problems about identity can't even be formulated without the concept of identity [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]
6053 Identity is as basic as any concept could ever be [McGinn]