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Notes On A World of States of Affairs (1997) : 2.32 Partial Identity

This document discusses issues related to identity across possible worlds and over time. It argues that properties and relations have strict identity, while particulars only have loose identity over time and sometimes across worlds. Loose identity means things are members of the same equivalence class based on some salient relation. The document also discusses the notion of partial identity, such as the identity between a whole and its parts. Some philosophers reject partial identity and argue these are just cases of non-identity of parts. The document considers whether admitting partial identity provides metaphysical illumination.

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18 views1 page

Notes On A World of States of Affairs (1997) : 2.32 Partial Identity

This document discusses issues related to identity across possible worlds and over time. It argues that properties and relations have strict identity, while particulars only have loose identity over time and sometimes across worlds. Loose identity means things are members of the same equivalence class based on some salient relation. The document also discusses the notion of partial identity, such as the identity between a whole and its parts. Some philosophers reject partial identity and argue these are just cases of non-identity of parts. The document considers whether admitting partial identity provides metaphysical illumination.

Uploaded by

Cherry
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Notes on A World of States of Affairs (1997)

teams strictly identical at the different times of their existence? Most


philosophers, I suppose, would think this identity is only loose and popular only.
In possible world theory, the dispute between identity across worlds and mere
counterparts in other worlds also appears to be a dispute concerning the force
of very same. Counterparts are the very same thing in the loose sense only.
This work will argue for strict identity in the case of properties and relations,
loose identity for particulars over time, and loose identity, in many cases though
not in all, for the same thing in different possible worlds.
We go on to ask what rules govern the loose sense. Where we are prepared to
say that different things are the same, they are always (different) members of the
identical equivalence class, where the equivalence relation for this class(a
symmetrical, transitive and reflexive relation) is somehow salient in the situation
where loose identity is asserted.

2.32 Partial identity


Besides the distinction between strict and loose identity we also require the
notion of a strict but partial identity.
There are partial identities. One is whole/part, the other is overlap. Mereology,
which deals with these notions, may be thought of as an extended logic of
identity, extended to deal with such cases of partial identity.
Some philosophers reject the notion of partial identity. These cases, they
argue, are no more than cases of non-identity. All that is involved, they say, is the
having of a (completely) identical part. There is no partial identity, only nonpartial identity of parts.
The dispute is rather a frustrating one, because it seems to be one where all
the facts lie open before us and the question is no more than which way of
talking we should adopt.
It does seems, however, that to admit partial identity is metaphysically
illuminating. Are not the parts of a thing part of the being of that thing? After all,
if you take all the parts of a thing, then you take the thing. And as you come
nearer and nearer to taking all the parts of a thing, so you are nearer to taking
the thing.

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Properties I
Properties II
Powers and dispositions
Relations
Particulars
States of affairs

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