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IDENTITY AND INDISCERNIBILITY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 June 2011

JEFFREY KETLAND
JEFFREY KETLAND*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Edinburgh
*
*JEFFREY KETLAND DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH EDINBURGH UNITED KINGDOM. E-mail:[email protected]
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Abstract

The notion of strict identity is sometimes given an explicit second-order definition: objects with all the same properties are identical. Here, a somewhat different problem is raised: Under what conditions is the identity relation on the domain of a structure first-order definable? A structure may have objects that are distinct, but indiscernible by the strongest means of discerning them given the language (the indiscernibility formula). Here a number of results concerning the indiscernibility formula, and the definability of identity, are collected and a number of applications discussed.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Symbolic Logic , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , June 2011 , pp. 171 - 185
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Symbolic Logic 2011

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