Abstract

This is a brief sketch of the form which the analysis of the concept of identity would take under the impact of the most recent phase of Scientific Empiricism. The frame of reference is thus that of Carnap's Introduction to Semantics. Most characteristic of this approach is that it reaches its main clarifications by distinguishing between the various connotations of the traditional terms along the three lines of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. The notion of truth, for instance, must be split into syntactical truth or analyticality, semantical truth, and pragmatical truth. Only the last has something to do with belief and verification. In a somewhat similar manner identity splits, upon closer examination, into three radically different meanings, but it will be seen that the third one has nothing to do with either pure or applied pragmatics. Some of the points I am trying to make have been dealt with, in an interesting manner, in a recent paper by Quine.