Blackwell Reference Online

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L ogic Identity, signified by expressions such as “the same as,” is generally thought to be a relation either between two distinct things, or between one thing and itself. However, if it is the former, then the statement of identity must be false because two distinct things cannot be the same. If it is the latter, the statement of identity is true, but is the most trivial tautology. The paradox , which can be traced to Plato and Aristotle , was explicitly expressed by Wittgenstein : “to say of two things that they are identical is nonsense, and to say of one thing that it is identical with itself is to say nothing at all” ( Tractatus , 5.5303). Frege attempted to solve the paradox by saying that a true meaningful identity statement involves expressions with the same reference but different senses. Russell claimed that the paradox is due to the confusion of two levels of predicates , and Wittgenstein denied that identity is a relation. “The paradox of identity similarly proceeds from an assumption – the assumption that a statement of identity asserts a relation.” C. Williams, What is Identity? ... log in or subscribe to read full text