more from Gottfried Leibniz

Single Idea 5055

[catalogued under 9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 7. Indiscernible Objects]

Full Idea

By virtue of insensible variations, two individual things can never be perfectly alike.

Gist of Idea

No two things are totally identical

Source

Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], Pref)

Book Reference

Leibniz,Gottfried: 'Philosophical Writings', ed/tr. Parkinson,G.H.R. [Dent 1973], p.158


A Reaction

This sounds a bit like the 'discernibility of non-identicals', except that he says that the differences may not be 'sensible'. He has to be talking of physical things, since I presume that, say, the symmetry of two circles is perfectly identical.