Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Metaphysics', 'How Things Persist' and 'Logical Necessity'

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5 ideas

9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 1. Concept of Identity

11380	Two things with the same primary being and essence are one thing [Aristotle]
	Full Idea: If any two items have a single substance [ousia, primary being] and a single what-it-is-to-be-that-thing [to ti en einai, essence], then they are themselves a single thing.
	From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1038b14)
	A reaction: [alternative translations by Vasilis Politis] This isn't quite the identity of indiscernibles, because it allows superficial identity along with deep difference (H2O and XYZ, for example, or jadeite and nephrite).

9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 4. Type Identity

17848	Things such as two different quadrangles are alike but not wholly the same [Aristotle]
	Full Idea: Things are alike if they are not just the same simpliciter, exhibiting differences in their substrate substance but being formally the same. Examples are larger and smaller quadrangles and unequal straight lines, which are alike but not the same.
	From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1054b06)

9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 5. Self-Identity

16134	We can't understand self-identity without a prior grasp of the object [Aristotle]
	Full Idea: To ask why a thing is identical with itself is not to ask a real question in the absence of a clear grasp of the fact ….or of the object.
	From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1041a12)
	A reaction: This seems a very nice response to Lewis's attempt to sweep difficulties of identity aside, when he rests identity on primitive self-identity.

17847	You are one with yourself in form and matter [Aristotle]
	Full Idea: You are one with yourself both in form and in matter.
	From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1054a35)

9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 8. Leibniz's Law

16225	If two things might be identical, there can't be something true of one and false of the other [Hawley]
	Full Idea: We can call the 'transference principle' the claim that if it is indeterminate whether two objects are identical, then nothing determinately true of one can be determinately false of the other.
	From: Katherine Hawley (How Things Persist [2001], 4.9)
	A reaction: The point is that Leibniz's Law could immediately be invoked to show there is no possibility of their identity.