Identity

David Megginson david at megginson.com
Mon Jun 21 23:18:41 BST 1999


John Cowan writes:

 > And don't try to dispense with identity, either, or you find you
 > can't even count things.  To say "There are five sheep in that
 > field" is to say "There exists a sheep, A, in the field, and
 > ... and there exists a sheep, E, in the field, and A is not
 > identical with B, C, D, or E, and B is not identical ..., and D is
 > not identical with E."  We can count sheep (real sheep) only
 > because we have identity criteria for sheep.

Of course, non-imaginary sheep move around while you're counting them,
so in a big flock at least one sheep is likely to be counted twice.


All the best,


David

-- 
David Megginson                 david at megginson.com
           http://www.megginson.com/

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