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3 ideas
17038 | If Hesperus and Phosophorus are the same, they can't possibly be different [Kripke] |
Full Idea: If Hesperus and Phosphorus are one and the same, then in no other possible world can they be different. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity lectures [1970], Lecture 2) | |
A reaction: If we ask whether one object could possibly be two objects, and deny that possibility, then Kripke's novel thought seems just right and obvious. |
17036 | Identity statements can be contingent if they rely on descriptions [Kripke] |
Full Idea: If the man who invented bifocals was the first Postmaster General of the United States - that they were one and the same - it's contingently true. …So when you make identity statements using descriptions, that can be a contingent fact. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity lectures [1970], Lecture 2) |
15847 | Two things relate either as same or different, or part of a whole, or the whole of the part [Plato] |
Full Idea: Everything is surely related to everything as follows: either it is the same or different; or, if it is not the same or different, it would be related as part to whole or as whole to part. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 146b) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as a really helpful first step in trying to analyse the nature of identity. Two things are either two or (actually) one, or related mereologically. |