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9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 3. Relative Identity

[identity can only ever be in respect of some feature]

18 ideas
As an infant, Socrates was not the same body, but he was the same human being [Hobbes]
Same person, man or substance are different identities, belonging to different ideas [Locke]
Geach denies Frege's view, that 'being the same F' splits into being the same and being F [Perry on Frege]
Things can only be judged the 'same' by citing some respect of sameness [Goodman]
Denial of absolute identity has drastic implications for logic, semantics and set theory [Wasserman on Geach]
Identity is relative. One must not say things are 'the same', but 'the same A as' [Geach]
If diachronic identities need covering concepts, why not synchronic identities too? [Ayers]
An act of ostension doesn't seem to need a 'sort' of thing, even of a very broad kind [Cartwright,R]
Statements of 'relative identity' are really statements of resemblance [Perry]
Relative Identity is incompatible with the Indiscernibility of Identicals [Wiggins, by Strawson,P]
Relativity of Identity makes identity entirely depend on a category [Wiggins]
To identify two items, we must have a common sort for them [Wiggins]
Gallois is committed to identity with respect to times, and denial of simple identity [Gallois, by Sider]
A clear idea of the kind of an object must precede a criterion of identity for it [Lowe]
We sometimes apply identity without having a real criterion [Hale]
We aren't clear about 'same stuff as this', so a principle of individuation is needed to identify it [Sidelle]
If identity is based on 'true of X' instead of 'property of X' we get the Masked Man fallacy ('I know X but not Y') [Baggini /Fosl, by PG]
Relative identity may reject transitivity, but that suggests that it isn't about 'identity' [Wasserman]