How to Live Without Identity—And Why

Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90 (4):761 - 777 (2012)
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Abstract

Identity, we're told, is the binary relation that every object bears to itself, and to itself only. But how can a relation be binary if it never relates two objects? This puzzled Russell and led Wittgenstein to declare that identity is not a relation between objects. The now standard view is that Wittgenstein's position is untenable, and that worries regarding the relational status of identity are the result of confusion. I argue that the rejection of identity as a binary relation is perfectly tenable. To this end, I outline and defend a logical framework that is not committed to an objectual identity relation but is nevertheless expressively equivalent to first-order logic with identity. After it has thus been shown that there is no indispensability argument for objectual identity, I argue that we have good reasons for doubting the existence of such a relation, and rebut a number of attempts at discrediting these reasons.

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Kai Wehmeier
University of California, Irvine

References found in this work

Naming and Necessity.Saul Kripke - 1980 - Philosophy 56 (217):431-433.
Naming and necessity.Saul Kripke - 2010 - In Darragh Byrne & Max Kölbel, Arguing about language. New York: Routledge. pp. 431-433.
Naming and Necessity.Saul Kripke - 1980 - Critica 17 (49):69-71.
Word and Object.Willard Van Orman Quine - 1960 - Les Etudes Philosophiques 17 (2):278-279.

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