Identity and Reference

Mind Association

Identity and ReferenceAuthor(s): Tobias ChapmanSource: Mind, New Series, Vol. 82, No. 328 (Oct., 1973), pp. 542-556Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Mind AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2252207 .

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V.-IDENTITY AND REFERENCE

BY TO BIAS CHAPMAN

I

THE solution to the recent controversy about the nature of the identity relation hinges on the question of whether certain theses about reference and quantification are true or not. Conversely a certain position on identity will determine logically what position one takes up on questions of reference. It seems to me that some of the opponents of Geach's thesis that identity is relative' quite uncritically take up a position on meaning and reference from which the incorrectness of Geach's position on identity can be deduced. It would be unrealistic of me to think that the argu- inent of this paper can resolve the controversy, since the issues are very far-reaching, involving for instance questions about the correctness of various forms of nominalism and platonism. What I do try to do is spell out more carefully the assumptions about meaning and reference that, for instance, Wiggins2 and Perry3 seem to be operating on in dissolving apparent counter-examples to the thesis of " strict identity ". I attempt to show that these assumptions are open to question and that therefore the thesis of the relativity of identity may be correct.

II

Wiggins discusses three theses concerning identity. The first Wiggins calls the D-thesis. Where ' f ' and ' g' are variable predicables (in Geach's sense) ranging over sortal concepts, and ' a ' and ' b ' are the names of objects, the D-thesis is that ' a is identical with b ' means ' a is identical with b under some covering concept f ' symbolized ' a-b ', or that ' (a = b) _ (3 f)

(a = b) ' (Wiggins, pp. 1, 2). I will assume to begin with that

some version of D is correct but will not attempt to choose at this stage between Wiggin's stronger and weaker versions of a thesis that seems to be entailed by it, viz. that all individuals fall under

1 See P. T. Geach, " Identity ", Review of Metaphysics, September, 1967, vol. xxi, pp. 3-12.

2 David Wiggins, Identity and Spatio-Temporal Continuity, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967. All further quotations from Wiggins are taken from this book.

3 John Perry, " The Same F ", Philosophical Review, April 1970, pp. 181-200.

542



IDENTITY AND REFERENCE 543

more definite sortal concepts than simply' object 'or ' substance '. The two versions are, (D.i): (x) (t) [(x exists at t) v (3 g) (g (x) at t)] and (D.ii): (x) (3 g) (t) [(x exists at t) D (g (x) at t)].I The relativisation thesis, R, allows that a can be identical with b relative to one covering-concept f and yet not identical relative to some other concept g. Prtmafacie, if R is true some version of D must be true. Two types of cases which, were they possible, would support R Wiggins symbolizes,

(a = b) & (a = b) & (g (a) v g (b)) & (g (a) & g (b)) f g

which he calls a type (4) case, and (a = b) & (a 0 b) & g (a) v g (b)) & (g (a) & g (b))

f g which he calls a type (5) case. (The examples which apparently support R which Wiggins numbers (1), (2), and (3) are in his view too easy to dispose of to be worth much discussion.) Wiggins' view is that D is true and R is false, Geach's that both D and R are true. Wiggins' method of disposing of R is to show that examples apparently confirming R violate one version of Leibniz's Law and in any case involve either a confusion of tensed and untensed discourse or involve one or more types of equivocation, e.g. confusing the 'is of constitution ' with the 'is of identity' or employing a proper name with an ambiguous sense. The last, is, I think, the most interesting objection. Consider these two examples of Geach's. (a) Suppose Cleopatra's Needle corrodes and is repaired with concrete; so that by 1980 all its stone has been replaced. Then we can apparently say, " Cleopatra's Needle (in 1900) is the same landmark as Cleopatra's Needle (in 1980) but not thie same parcel of matter ". Secondly (b) consider this list,

(A) blue (B) blue (C) red.

Here we have three word-tokens but only two word-types; hence one can apparently say that (A) and (B) are the same word-types but not the same tokens. Wiggins' first criticism of these examples is that construed as confirmation of R they would violate Leibniz's Law, which Wiggins takes to be " (a b) v (s)

a b) " where b ranges over both sortal and non-sortal predicates including the predicate, " a = x ". Because of the

g

1 There are difficulties with both the symbolization and the interpretation of D. On this see M. C. Bradley's Critical Notice of Wiggins' book in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 47, no. 1 (May 1969), pp. 69-79.



544 T. CHAPMAN:

seniantical paradoxes there is a difficulty about construing b as ranging over all properties but apart from that Wiggins seems to be right here on his interpretation of Leibniz's Law. But his is not the only interpretation: Professor Odegard1 has provided another which is consistent with the truth of R; so I will start with Wiggins' other objection to (a) and with Perry's criticism of

Wiggin,s' Criticism of (a) is that it appears to support R only because the expression " Cleopatra's Needle " is ambiguous. We have Cleopatra's Needle-qua-parcel-of-matter (CNm) and Cleopatra's Needle-qua-landmark (CNl); so where " 1" stands for the covering concept "landmark ", and "in" for "matter (of such and such a type)" (a) simply reduces to "CNl (in 1900) =

CNl (in 1980) = CNni (in 1980) " and this in no way supports R since " CNl (in 1900)" has the same sense and reference as " CNl (in 1980) ", but "CNm (in 1900) " does not have the same meaning as " CNm (in 1980) ". Concerning this Wiggins says, "There is here a special difficulty which has to be faced by a conlsistent defender of the position Geach took up in Reference and Generaltty. To keep example (a) above in play at all as a type-4 example the defender will have to claim that landmark and stone give differeint principles of identity. But by the theory of proper names defended in Reference and Generality the sense of a proper name is given by the principle of identity built into the general term associated with it. It seems to follow that if 'Cleopatra's Needle ' has two equally good but different' nominal essences' then it ought to be ambiguous. In which case (a) should not surprise or impress us any more than any startling paradox arrived at by equivocation " (Wiggins, pp. 14, 15).

If this account Wiggins gives of Geach's explanation of proper namnes is correct then Geach is inconsistent in also holding R for the following reason. If the sense of a name is given by the principle of identity built into the concept under which the named thing falls then it certainly appears to be true that if the named 'thing' is understood to fall under two concepts having different 'principles of identity' built into them, the name must indeed be ambiguous and examples containing it which purport to confirm R do not. But I think we should first of all look briefly at Geach's account of names in Reference and Generality before deciding whether this is really a correct interpretation of his views.

Geach arg-ues for a sharp distinction between names and 1 See his paper, " Identity Through Time ", American Philosophical

Quarterly, vol. ix, January 1972.




predicables which express general concepts. Names do not come in contradictory pairs, they have a " complete sense ", are always tenseless, and are simple (i.e. do not have grammatical parts). Nonetheless the proper use of a name presupposes that some general concept applies to the thing named (although Geach rejects the disguised description theory of proper names).' His positive account seems to be this. Given the distinction between names and predicables it must be wrong to say that the meaning of a proper name is exactly the same as the concepts with which it is " associated ". Rather the relation between them can be brought out in this way. Where G, F and R are predicates aild we are talking about the cat Jemima then, " This cat G-ed (where the reference of ' this cat ' is given by pointing to Jemima) and then the same cat F-ed and then the same cat R-ed" can do the same job as "Jemima G-ed, then F-ed, then R-ed ". So we have that " Fa" entails " The same cat F-ed " once the reference of " Jemima " in the particular context has been established. Thus, Geach's view about the sense of proper names appears to be that part of the sense of a proper name ' N ' is the same as the senlse of ' this F ' where F is a substance concept which applies to N, or, that having been established, of ' the same F'. But presumably only in marginal cases would it be the complete sense. I think it is important that there does not seem to be any a priori way of establishing just which predicables can be correctly substituted for F. The connection of this with identity Geach states rather briefly. He says for instance, " it makes no sense to judge whether . . . X remnains ' the samne ' unless we add or understand some general term-' the same F'. That in accordance with which we thus judge as to the identity, I call a criterion of identity " (Geach, p. 39). Now this might easily be construed in the way that Wiggins takes it as showing that G-each's views on proper names and identity as outlined above and his espousal of R are inconsistent. But one way of escaping Wiggins' conclusion would be to restate his summary of Geach's view on proper names (p. 3 of this paper) in this way, " the sense of a proper name is given by the general term(s) associated with it, to which a principle or principles of identity attach, but the sense is not given by the principle of identity itself ". However this does not really resolve the difficulty. If " Cleopatra's Needle " has the sense of " this landmark, etc., made of concrete " in 1980 then it just is equivocal, whatever the relationship between sense and criterion of identity may be. Presumably the sense of " Cleopatra's Needle " is something

1 Reference and Generality, p. 44.

18



546 T. CHAPMAN:

like, landmark of such and such a shape in such and such a position etc. constructed out of some matter or other (the possibilities being here understood not to include, e.g. mercury), in which case there is no equivocation. Hence the correct way of inter- preting Geach's views is, I think, the following. Most objects of reference are such that no guarantee can be given that the general concepts by means of which they can be referred to each 'contain' a principle of identity which will individuate in exactly the same way (either at one time or over time) and further, we cannot restrict the sense of the proper name to just those concepts which do individuate in the same way. For instance, in referring to Cleopatra's Needle one must necessarily refer to some specific matter or other (as well as to other things) and although 'this matter' and ' this matter ' (said at different times) might be said to individuate in the same way (if it individuates at all, which is unlikely), certainly 'this (parcel of) stone ' and 'this (parcel of) concrete ' do not. Geach says, for instance, " different proper names of material objects convey different requirements as to identity " (p. 43). To this he might have added that the same proper name may convey different requirements as to identity because the thing named falls under different concepts, and that this is precisely what makes R true. It is natural to protest (once again) that it does not show this, but rather only that the name involved is ambiguous. This seems to be incorrect for two reasons. Firstly, it would preclude discovery that the thing named falls under new concepts having somewhat different requirements as to identity built into them and this would be inimical to intellectual advance. (Some examples will be given later.) Secondly we cannot guarantee that reference to something under several concepts, will always be such that the concepts have the same principles of individuation built into them (except in mathematics perhaps) without falling into a specious form of platonism. For example, if there are no separated forms one cannot refer to Cleopatra's Needle just qua landmark-of-such-and-such-a-shape- in-such-and-such-a-position etc. There is simply no such thing as the latter as such; in referring to it one is always referring to something instantiated in matter. Thus Wiggins' argument that one inust refer to Cleopatra's Needle either qua-landmark or qua-piece of stone or etc. would seem to commit him to a type of platonism that I think he would want to reject. One inight even say that Wiggins' question, "What is meant by 'Cleopatra's Needle '-what is it that someone points to when they point to Cleopatra's Needle? " cannot be given the sort of answer that he wants. The sense must be' inexact 'in allowing for the possibility




of new concepts being applicable to the object, and changes in the object referred to will be reflected by this possibility being ful- filled. But attempts to become any " clearer " about objects of reference appear to be futile. This does not, however, show that Wiggins cannot consistently maintain the position that he does. What it does show, I think, is that his argument is circular: concerning any exainple which supports R and denies (one version of) Leibniz's Law, Wiggins can say that the " is " involved is one of constitution not identity or that some other equivocation is involved. The supporter of R can allow that confusions can take place but deny that the sort of ' equivocation ' discussed above is really fallacious or avoidable: that is why R is true.

The point could be summed up in the following way. Either a term referring to something like a statue, a type, a meaning, a man and so on (1) refers just to a form which is ' strictly identical ' with itself over time; so that ' equivocation ' is avoided, or (2) refers to a form qua instantiated in a particular bit of matter. I think Wiggins would want to accept (2) but with the proviso that if the matter of the thing changes sufficiently to give the concept designating the matter a different principle of identity, then the name of the thing used at different times will be ambiguous. But this would make virtually any name ' ambiguous' since most things are always changing, e.g. " CN " (above) would be 'ambiguous' uttered at t1 and (one second later) at t2 since CNt2 and CNt1 would not be exactly the same parcel of concrete. Therefore there could not be a language describing the empirical world which satisified Wiggins' requirements.

Perry develops Wiggins' view and gives a general rationale for it. " The view I advocate . . . is that the role of the general term is to identify the referents not to identify the 'kind of identity' asserted ", and in line with this Perry holds that there is only one sort of identity (Perry, p. 185. Cf. p. 199). Consider again the example mentioned earlier, involving Cleopatra's Needle. We can apparently say here " A and B are the same type, but A and B are not the same token ", and we have an example supporting R. But on Perry's view the general terms involved, here "type" and "token ", identify the referents; thus A and B have different meanings; so we do not have an example illustrating R. The reply to this would be essentially the same as the reply to Wiggins, that in this case, one cannot refer to types without also referring to tokens. What I would like to add is that it is a hopelessly artificial and restrictive device to attempt to separate logically the " kind of identity " asserted from the role of the general term in referring; the one determines



548 T. CHAPMAN:

the other. The question is whether more than one general concept can play a part in the reference of a term even though the concepts involved provide different criteria of identity for the entity which is named and I have argued that this situation is unavoidable.

There is another interesting objection that Perry has to Geach's view. After accusing Geach of " nominalism " he explains, " The nominalist would claim that 'being of the same type ' is analyzable in terms of ' equiformity ' and that references to types are in some sense eliminable; Geach seems to claim that they are not only eliminable, but never occur in the first place " (Perry, p. 196). This criticism presupposes that there is no position intermediate between a (materialistic) nominalism and outright platonism. Presumably Geach is only claiming that in referring to, for instance, a type, a " meaning " or the form of a statue one is not referring to an entity which could enjoy an independent existence: to refer to a type is to refer to a mark or a sound (the form of a mark or a sound) having a certain use; to refer to a statue is to refer to a parcel of matter qua having a certain shape and so on. It is not that one cannot refer to the surfaces of tables and quantify over such things but only that in referring to, e.g. the surface of a table one is also referring to a table. I do not believe the logic of this sort of thing has been very carefully worked out.

III

The success of reference depends on what actually exists and not on what is known to exist, but what is referred to depends ill part on the knowledge and intentions of the person who is using the words to refer. What the success of reference clearly could not depend on is a grasp of a complete and detailed list of all the predicates (including relational ones) which truly applied to the object to which one was referring. Hence apparently all cases of reference outside mathematics are " referentially opaque " in the sense that we cannot in principle specify in advance all expressions correctly substitutable for the referring expression actually being used. Quine's point1 that the substitution of a referring expression X for another Y may, in certain contexts, change the truth-value of the proposition within which the expressions are used is certainly correct and points to a genuine contrast with other cases of reference. But because of the rela-

1 See, for example, Quine's " Reference and Modality " in From A Logical Point of View, pp. 142, 143.




tion between knowledge and reference I would argue that what we really have are different degrees of (and perhaps types of) opaqueness of reference. The only contrast is with respect to mathematical " objects " since here there exists the possibility of specifying all their properties. For instance Quine takes as a type of context in which opaque reference may ta.ke place propositions of the sort " N knows X " since N may know X on one description but not on another. But I should wish to argue that all cases of reference are dependent on what knowledge of the object the person referring to it (allegedly) possesses whether or not expressions explicitly asserting this occur in the sentence he is using; so that all cases of reference, assuming the referrer is not omniscient, are opaque in a sense analogous to Quine's. For example, the reference of the phrase " a man in a grey tweed suit " is opaque according to Quine in the (true) statement, " Jones knows that a man in a grey tweed suit witnessed the accident " since the expression " Smith " may be correctly substitutable for " the man in the grey tweed suit " and yet the resulting sentence " Jones knows that Smith witnessed the accident " may be false. There certainly is a contrast here between these cases and the statement " Smith witnessed the accident " for the latter will retain the same truth-value no matter what referring expression we correctly substitute for " Smith ". My point is that the one complex expression we cannot substitute is one containing a complete description of Smith and thus one not allowing for " opaqueness " as it occurs in such contexts as those explicitly containing expressions like " N knows that .. ". Hence in this respect all reference must be opaque and Quine has just drawn a distinction between reference within and outside mathemnatics. (Of course opaque reference could occur in mathematics as well especially if platonism is true.) I would speculate then that a Quinean objection to the R-thesis about identity (that R only appears true because of the possibility of opaque reference) would come to the same as Wiggins' objection and would be open to the same type of criticismi.

IV Essentialism and the D-thesis. The nominal essence of a thing

I take to be given by the sense of the term used to designate it. It seems that in many cases there is a clear distinction between this and the real essence of a thing, e.g. the nominal essence may simply consist in symptoms of the real essence's presence. For example one might say that the nominal essence of acid is given



550 T. CHAPMAN:

by, " a corrosive, sour tasting substance which turns litmus paper red " and its real essence by " a substance which liberates hydrogen ions in solution ".

Wiggins identifies his strong version of the D-thesis (Dii-see p. 543 of this paper) with his essentialism, and he says concerning the latter that all it amounts to is that we cannot identify property-less primary substances. In a certain respect I think that Wiggins is correct both in maintaining the equivalence of the D-thesis and essentialism and in maintaining the truth of the latter. Vision,1 on the other hand, rejects essentialism which he takes to be the view that (1) proper names have a sense formed by a sortal property; (2) individuals have nominal essences. The nerve of Vision's argument against this " essentialism " is that one can give examples of " proper names " which violate both (1) and (2). He gives as examples " Proteus " and " Lepidopteron ". The names of some marine invertebrates, " Echinodermata " and " Annelida " which have transparent, ciliated larvae very different from the adults would also appear to be examples. Such individuals seem to have no one property or set properties throughout their history which could be the basis of the sense of their names or could constitute their nominal essence. (For our purposes here we can ignore the possibility of (1) being true and (2) false or vice-versa.) I take it that Vision does not mean us to infer from this that such proper names simply designate property-less primary substances which can only be traced through their spatio-temporal continuity, but rather that their having a series of " essences " plus a spatio-temporal history is sufficient for their names to have a sense. The obvious essentialist reply to this is that " Proteus " is not really a meaningful name and that the other things are, for example Echino- dermata or Annelida throughout their history. Concerning this Vision says, " The reply that all this shows is that 'cater- pillar' and 'butterfly' do not belong to the substituted set for ' X ', just as 'body' does not, and that we need another count noun say, 'Lepidopteron' under which we may continuously identify the individuals in question, only pushes the problem back a short step. For only if it can be independently decided that individuals of type X are identical with individuals of type Y can a count noun " restricting " both X and Y be legitimate. And this is just the situation the essentialist-holding the strong thesis-claims can never occur if we have identified individuals as X or as Y " (Vision, p. 326). But the essentialist point here is not

1 Gerald Vision, " Essentialism and the Senses of Proper Names ", American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 7, no. 4, (October 1970), pp. 321-330.




that there are necessarily 'natural kinds ' and clearly delineated 'individuals' but that we must introduce such concepts as " Lepid- opteron " and that this is by no means pure invention. There is, after all, a scientific account of the changes in question which provides the rationale (together with spatio-temporal continuity) for the use of the name. The question of whether such concepts are invented or discovered seems to have no clear-cut answer; all the essentialist wants to stress is that we clearly need such concepts. Thus the examples Vision provides are, to the extent that they support his case at all, necessarily maryinal, and so prove nothing. After pointing out that we do not ordinarily change sortals in mid-stream through time and space when we are identifying individuals by means of them Vision says, " The counter-examples were only drawn to show that what is ordinarily true or always useful is not thereby guaranteed a priori" (Vision, p. 328). This is no doubt correct but I do not think that one can infer from it that essentialism is false but only that there are cases where we must introduce new covering concepts to accommodate them. Furthermore, we have reasons grounded in empirical fact for identifying the queer individuals in question as individuals which quite go beyond the observation of mere spatio-temporal continuity. For instance, no one would be tempted to specify a sortal property by which one individual could be identified through the following series of changes (though we clearly could have spatio-temporal continuity here): butterfly, petrified butterfly, pile of dust, the latter transformed into something quite different in a nuclear reactor; unless that sortal property were simply Aristotelian matter. But part of the essentialists' point (with which Aristotelians would, I think, agree) is that the latter concept has no use whatever in ' sorting out ' individuals through time. (Aquinas, for instance, only asserted that it was a " principle of individuation " for things having the same substantial form at a time not through time.) The concept of an Echinodermata, for instance, is not at all like that of Proteus, or an Aristotelian parcel of matter, or an 'individual'. It is a marine invertebrate which goes through a quite startling series of changes in its life-time which can be described and explained by biologists. And 'marine invertebrate' is a perfectly good sortal concept. If all entities were like Proteus then our ability to refer to them through time would quite clearly dissolve. Thus although there is a sense (which is not entirely clear) in which cases such as Proteus are not ex- cluded a priori they must be exceptional and hence are not genuine counter-examples. With these qualifications, then,



552 T. CHAPMAN:

essentialism and the D-thesis are both true. This is not to affirin " weak essentialism " in Vision's sense, viz. that there must be some sortal concept which applies to an individual at every time in its history but not necessarily any one concept which applies to it throughout its history. It is rather to affirm strong essentialism in the sense of holding that necessarily it must be generally true that a given individual falls under at least one sortal concept throughout its history (and so admits Vision's examples as he describes them but would not allow that they are counter- examples to the thesis in question). This is, however, probably a weaker form of essentialism than Wiggins would want to accept. I will return to this point in discussing " porous sortals ".

It is worth remarking that Vision mentions in the course of his argument that he accepts a view of meaning once put forward by Hilary Putnam.' This view could be fairly summarized I think in the following way. The meaning of some expressions is not given by the criteria for their application embedded in the language in which the expressions occur, but by the real and perhaps unknown essence of the extension of the terni. Putnam asks us to consider two examples (pp. 218 to 221 of his paper), " multiple sclerosis " and " acid ". He says, " there is a disease multiple sclerosis, which is extremely difficult to diagnose. The symptoms resemble those of other neurological diseases; and not all of the symptoms are usually present. Some neurologists believe that multiple sclerosis is caused by a virus . . Putnam then goes on to argue that it would be quite wrong to give the meaning of " multiple sclerosis " by reference to the criteria for the application of the term, for these "criteria " are mere symptoms and not a particularly definite set at that, while what the neurologist means by the terms is the presence of a certain virus, plus, perhaps that virus' having such and such destructive effects on the nervous systeii. Now this account might seem somewhat unimaginative. How does one know for instance that there is only one disease involved here; how does one know that " the " disease is " difficult to diagnose " only because no firm decision has been made regarding what symptoms count as syinptoms of it and hence that there may really be several diseases involved? And how can the real meaning of " multiple sclerosis " be given by the description of the virus which actually causes it since no one can give such a description? And suppose further that there is no such virus. Putnam's view would appear

1 Ibid. p. 327. The Putnam paper is " Dreaming and Depth Grammar " in R. J. Butler, ed., Analytical Philosophy, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962. pp. 211-235, especially pp. 218-221.




to entail that this discovery would prove that previously neurologists had been using the term " multiple sclerosis " without its having any meaning whatever, and this is clearly false. However this is unfair to Putnam. He sums up his position, " This (i.e. what appears to be true concerning the use of the term " multiple sclerosis ") seems to me to be the case with a great many terms: the use of the term is based on the supposition that there is something-a 'natural kind', so to speak for which our ' criteria ' are good but not perfect indicators. In the case of such terms, the accepted criteria are often modified in the course of time. We could learn to speak with Malcolm and say that the term is given a series of new uses. But this obscures just what we want to stress: that the changes in the accepted criteria reflect the fact that we have more and more knowledge concerning X (where X may be a virus or a kind of chemical, etc.). Malcolm is assimilating two totally dissimilar cases: the case of arbitrary linguistic stipulation, and the case of finding better ways to tell whether or not something is present " (p. 220). I think that Putnam is correct and that this supports R; we can say for example that X is the same disease (e.g. multiple sclerosis) as Y but not the same set of symptoms. But the important point to notice is that Vision's point ultimately rests on an admission of ' natural kinds ' and is therefore self-defeating with regard to his position on essentialism. The cases which show this are of the following type. Sometimes we can only say that X is the same individual as Y for although they are the same instance of some natural kind (e.g. of the same virus) we do not necessarily know which natural kind. But the only rationale that Vision provides for our ability to do this is Putnam's view of meaning which allows that (in such cases) what is meant by " X " and by " Y " is really the natural kind to which they refer for which essence we have " indicators" but not " logical criteria "; so, again, what is really meant by "X is the same individual as Y " is " X is the same instance of such and such a natural kind as Y ". (And at some point it would have to be spelled out which natural kind was being discussed.) Thus essentialism has not been successfully refuted. It is a case, rather, of replacing nominal essences with natural kinds or of introducing Aristotelian matter in a way which will do no effective work.

V

Does all this show that Wiggins' version of essentialism is correct? As I understand him it does not quite do so since the



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essential sortal property which really applies to an individual may be unknown and later discovered, and it or other properties which an individual may be found to have may force us to divide up the world differently. Our individuating reference is always open to revision in the light of empirical discovery and so R remains true until such time as we have a general infallible theory which breaks up the world in a certain way. This brings us to a discussion of Wiggins' " porous concepts ". These are neither strictly speaking substance-sortals nor phase-concepts since it is not part of their sense (as it is in the case of phase- concepts) that there must exist some wider sortal-concept which they restrict. Wiggins says, " Language can stably accommodate porous or indeterminate sortal concepts f, which enable us to pick out fs during some stretch of their existence and which leave quite open the character of fs during other periods of their life-history.... The account would go on to suggest that when a thinker is equipped with such a porous sortal concept f and has the general concept of a continuent through change . . . then if he wishes ... the thinker can count a suitable event or process which he witnesses befall an f as the discovery that fs become f's " (Wiggins, Appendix, 5.1). And in footnote 37 he says we must avoid " the supposition that one can tell a priori for any given sortal, e.g. the sortal tadpole or pupa, whether or not it is a substance-sortal or merely a phase-sortal ". But the implica- tion seems to be that we must be able to tell a priori for most things which substance-as opposed to phase-sortals apply to them if our language is not to break down. (Cf. Section III of this paper.) It seems very difficult with regard to many sortals to decide definitely whether they are phase or substance-sortals in Wiggins' sense. (This may partly explain why there has been such a strong tendency among some philosophers and scientists to insist that really there can be only one substance of which everything is composed; so that every alleged substance- sortal is really a phase-sortal restricting a single substance.) In any case the main point for our purposes here is that Wiggins' remarks about porous-sortals though formally consistent with his (Dii) makes the latter at best a regulative ideal and at worst misleading, for if we could actually specify all the properties in question all important discoveries about the natures of things would be precluded and there would be no porous concepts.

Given the above qualifications I think, then, that both essentialism and the D-thesis are true and I now offer an outline of an informal proof of the latter. The D-thesis must be true for the simple reason that the meaningfulness of " a " and " b " in




" a = b " logically depends upon their referring to something by means of general concepts. But since reference and identity logically mesh this entails that identity relative to some concept which is part of the meaning of " a " and of " b " as they occur in " a = b " is necessary to the mneaning of " a = b ". Theo- retically it might appear that this last bit is false on the grounds that it is possible successfully to identify a and b without employing that concept relative to which a and b are identical and yet to understand the proposition, " a is (simply) the same individual as b ". Following Putnam I have allowed that this may seem so because in some cases we can only specify the concept over which a and b are identical very generally (e.g. as a virus) but this does not show that the D-thesis is false (that " a is the same individual as b " has any meaning as such) since just those concepts which must be used in reference to a and b must include those which can be used in identifying a through time or b through time or in identifying a as b. Consider two cases which seem to support the above rejection of D. (1) A person N successfully refers to a as a piece of concrete and later to b as a piece of (different) concrete but fails to notice that they are the same statue. (2) N knows that a at t1 and b at t2 are both men and ' knows ' (on hearsay or authority for instance) that a and b are identical but not that they are the same person. But (1) proves nothing against D: a is not the same parcel of concrete as b; once N recognizes that a and b are each statues then whether or not he knows they are identical he does grasp the concept relative to which they are identical and thus will identify ' them ' by means of that concept if he knows that they are identioal. What gives (2) its specious plausibility is that it is possible to know that a and b are both human beings without knowing that they are the same person. What would be to the point but is quite impossible, would be to know that a and b are each human beings and persons and identical without knowing that they are the same person or human being.

One final point may be worth making. The D-thesis and the relativity of identity are formally awkward; so, for philosophical purposes, why not simply drop both and introduce a concept of strict or numerical identity? Rules for the use of this symbol could be given; so that it would be meaningful to that extent, and the names conjoined by it would be understood as denoting arbitrarily selected spatio-temporal continuants (so as to avoid the D-thesis). The objection to this is that in order to give this code-game a use as a language about the empirical world we would have to be able to define its constants purely ostensively



556 T. CHAPMAN: IDENTITY AND REFERENCE

and this is impossible. On the other hand given a conceptual scheme it probably is possible to define some terms ostensively, but then the possibility is open of their falling under new concepts having different principles of identity built into them (i.e. the R-thesis is true). This is why cases apparently violating the D-thesis are necessarily exceptional: they must be unusual in just the way that ostensive definitions are. Hence even if there is an intelligible notion of strict numerical identity outside logic and mathematics it does not appear to have any application at all to persons,L and very little application in other contexts.

University of Guelph 1 For what seems to me an excellent analysis of personal identity see

Derek Parfit, " Personal Identity ", The Philosophical Review, January 1971, pp. 3-28. His conclusion is that " what matters in the continued existence of a person are for the most part, relations of degree (p. 26). I think my own anaiysis of identity would support Parfit's view.



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Identity and Reference