The Logical Contingency of Identity

European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 14 (2):5-10 (2018)
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Abstract

I show that intuitive and logical considerations do not justify introducing Leibniz’s Law of the Indiscernibility of Identicals in more than a limited form, as applying to atomic formulas. Once this is accepted, it follows that Leibniz’s Law generalises to all formulas of the first-order Predicate Calculus but not to modal formulas. Among other things, identity turns out to be logically contingent.

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Hanoch Ben-Yami
Central European University

References found in this work

A New Introduction to Modal Logic.M. J. Cresswell & G. E. Hughes - 1996 - New York: Routledge. Edited by M. J. Cresswell.
Introduction to mathematical logic.Elliott Mendelson - 1964 - Princeton, N.J.,: Van Nostrand.
A New Introduction to Modal Logic.G. E. Hughes & M. J. Cresswell - 1996 - Studia Logica 62 (3):439-441.
Modal Logic for Philosophers.James W. Garson - 2006 - Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
Modal logic for philosophers.James W. Garson - 2006 - New York: Cambridge University Press.

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