Is Objectual Identity Really Dispensable?

Erkenntnis 84 (4):761-782 (2019)
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Abstract

Kai Wehmeier’s Wittgensteinian Predicate Logic is a formulation of first-order logic under the exclusive interpretation of the quantifiers. W-logic has a distinguished relation constant for co-reference but no sign for objectual identity. Wehmeier denies that objectual identity exists on the grounds that it cannot be a genuine binary relation. Fortunately W-logic is equi-expressive with standard first-order logic with identity and it appears that objectual identity is dispensable across the broader logical enterprise. This paper challenges the latter claim as objectual identity seems to be needed in the exclusive interpretation of quantified modal logic, specifically, for implementing certain kinds of de re quantification.

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Eric Updike
Glendale Community College

Citations of this work

How to ground (higher-order) identities.Tien-Chun Lo - forthcoming - Philosophical Studies.
Wittgensteinian Predicate Logic and Compositionality.Kai F. Wehmeier - 2024 - Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 65 (2):113-125.

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References found in this work

Modal Logic as Metaphysics.Timothy Williamson - 2013 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Naming and Necessity.S. Kripke - 1972 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 45 (4):665-666.
Naming and Necessity.Saul Kripke - 1980 - Philosophy 56 (217):431-433.
Tractatus logico-philosophicus.Ludwig Wittgenstein - 1922 - Filosoficky Casopis 52:336-341.
Principles of mathematics.Bertrand Russell - 1931 - New York,: W.W. Norton & Company.

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