I Introduction

I. Distinction between token and type: p2

II. Example:
o Two tokens of the one type:

o Two different things, different particulars, can be of the

same type.
 (Does the same mean identical?)
 -> if yes, then there is something about
the two “the”s that is identical,
something in common.
 The tokens are completely separate, after all.
They are two different places.
 -> Could there really be something
identical about them?
o Two tokens are not total separate:
two tokens have the same, the
identical, property.
III. Distinction concerning identity:
o A distinction that was drawn by the 18th century English philosopher: Bishop
Joseph Butler.
 Two senses of the word “identity”:
 Identity in the strict sense
 Identity in “a loose and popular sense” : use e.g. of elephant
in p4. (So in this case talk of seeing the (very) same thing only amounts to talk of seeing
different parts of the very same thing. I am inclined to think that when 'the same' or 'the very
same' is used in a loose and popular sense, it always involves applying 'the same' to different
parts of the same thing, where that last phrase 'the same thing' has the sense of strict identity.
You and the other spectator see different parts of exactly the same, strictly the same, animal.)
 (The problem that Butler was concerned with was that of identity of
persons and other objects over time.)
 A person today and a person yesterday are not strictly identical:
Strict identity is governed by a principle that is called: the
Indiscernibility of Identicals:
o If a is strictly identical with b, then a and b have exactly
the same properties. Sameness of thing gives sameness
of properties. ->Leibniz’s Law.

  P ranges over properties, and x and y range over
all entities.
o E.g. The person may have been cold yesterday and may
be hot today, standing up yesterday and sitting today.
 ^ It seems that we can conclude, by the
Indiscemibility of Identicals, that the person
yesterday is not strictly identical with "the very
same person" today.

 Make use of Butler’s distinction: we can soften

the blow by saying that person yesterday and the
same person today is identity only in a “Loose
and popular” sense of the word “identity”. (p3)

 [(Identity of Indiscernibles: if a and b have all their properties

in common, then a is identical with b. Sameness of properties
gives sameness of thing.

o
o It is a more controversial argument compared to the
indiscernibility of identicals.
 Back to the temporal case: a person (stone, river) yesterday and the
same person today.
 Armstrong thinks that what we have here is two different parts
of the one unified thing, the person. These parts, however,
unlike the elephant case, are not spatial but temporal parts.
o In a loose and popular sense, the two parts are 'the same
person'. Strictly, however, they are different temporal
parts of a single four-dimensional entity, the person (the
stone, the river).
 Back to the Problem of Universals, in particular to the problem of the
two “the”s.
 We said that although by hypothesis there are two of them, they
are also in a way the same. They are instances of the very same
word, It was suggested that this meant that there is something
(strictly) identical about the two “the”s.
o But now, with Butler's distinction before us, we can see that the argument is
not so compelling as might be thought at first. Perhaps we will want to say that
the two tokens have something that is strictly identical. But perhaps the
identity involved is a loose and popular one. Perhaps the two tokens are said to
be the same because, although strictly nonidentical, strictly different,
nevertheless they are different parts of some wider unity that includes them
both. Perhaps, for instance, they are both different members of the one class,
or are both different parts of the same resemblance structure, or that both,
although different, fall under the same predicate or concept. In that case, to
apply the word 'same' to them both would be to attribute identity to them in a
loose and popular sense only.