•  3
    Originally published in 1985. This study concerns the problem of treating identity as a relation between an object and itself. It addresses the Russellian and Fregean solutions and goes on to present in the first part a surfacist account of belief-context ambiguity requiring neither differences in relative scope nor distinctions between sense and reference. The second part offers an account of negative existentials, necessity and identity-statements which resolves problems unlike the Russell-Fre…Read more
  •  117
    The Paradox of Identity
    Epistemologia 2 (2): 207-226. 1996.
    Call a semantics for singular terms *extensionalist* if it embraces and *classical* if it embraces. -/- 1. The meaning of a singular term is exhausted by its reference. 2. The reference of a singular term is an entity that is logically simple. -/- Call a semantics *adequate* if it distinguishes material identity from formal identity. -/- Frege reacts to the inadequacy of classical extensionalist semantics by rejecting. This he does without a sideways glance at, whose background ontology, an "ont…Read more
  •  7
    The difficulties encountered by attempts to treat identity as a relation between an object and itself are well-known: "...the sentence 'The morning star is...the morning star' is analytic and a truism, while...'The morning star is the evening star' is synthetic and represents a 'valuable extension of our knowledge'... But if {the morning star} and {the evening star} are the same object, and identity is taken as a relation holding between this object and itself, then it is impossible to explain h…Read more