Projects per year
Abstract
Questions about the relation between identity and discernibility are important both in philosophy and in model theory. We show how a philosophical question about identity and discernibility can be ‘factorized’ into a philosophical question about the adequacy of a formal language to the description of the world, and a mathematical question about discernibility in this language. We provide formal definitions of various notions of discernibility and offer a complete classification of their logical relations. Some new and surprising facts are proved; for instance, that weak discernibility corresponds to discernibility in a language with constants for every object, and that weak discernibility is the most discerning nontrivial discernibility relation.
Translated title of the contribution | Identity and Indiscernibility in Philosophy and Logic |
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Original language | English |
Pages (from-to) | 162 - 186 |
Number of pages | 25 |
Journal | Review of Symbolic Logic |
Volume | 5 |
Issue number | 1 |
Early online date | 17 Nov 2011 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Mar 2012 |
Research Groups and Themes
- Centre for Science and Philosophy
Keywords
- identity
- discernibility
- philosophy
- logic
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Dive into the research topics of 'Identity and Discernibility in Philosophy and Logic'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 1 Finished
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The Foundations of Structuralism
Ladyman, J. A. C. (Principal Investigator)
1/10/09 → 1/10/12
Project: Research