The Concept of Identity

In this book, Eli Hirsch focuses on identity through time, first with respect to ordinary bodies, then underlying matter, and eventually persons. These are linked at various points with other aspects of identity, such as the spatial unity of things, the unity of kinds, and the unity of groups. He investigates how our identity concept ordinarily operates in these respects. He also asks why this concept is so cental to our thinking and whether we can justify seeing the world in terms of such a concept. This is the revised and updated edition of a hardback published in 1982.

Eli Hirsch is Professor of Philosophy at Brandeis University

The Persistence of Objects	p. 1
Introduction to Part One	p. 3
Continuity	p. 7
The Simple Continuity Analysis	p. 7
Qualitative Continuity	p. 10
Spatiotemporal Continuity	p. 15
Is Continuity Necessary?	p. 22
Is Continuity Sufficient?	p. 25
Sortals	p. 34
The Sortal Rule	p. 34
The Making of a Sortal	p. 40
Coming into Existence and Going out of Existence	p. 47
Identity, Predication, and Constitution	p. 57
The Compositional Criterion	p. 64
The Basic Idea of Persistence	p. 72
A Question about Sortal-Relativity	p. 72
The Basic Rule	p. 77
Limitations of the Basic Rule	p. 82
Refining the Basic Rule	p. 90
Unity through Time and Space	p. 97
Articulation	p. 105
The Persistence of Matter	p. 113
A Puzzle about Matter	p. 113
An "Ultimate" Kind of Persistence	p. 119
Searching for Identity Criteria	p. 123
Matter and Common Sense	p. 128
The Metaphysics of Persistence	p. 138
Do We Need Persisting Objects?	p. 138
A Question about Spatiotemporal Continuity	p. 144
Identity Schemes	p. 149
"Real" and "Fictitious" Persistence	p. 156
Can We Justify Our Identity Scheme?	p. 162
Minds and Bodies	p. 175
Introduction to Part Two	p. 177
Foundations of Identity	p. 181
Metaphysical Priorities and Epistemological Priorities	p. 182
Body-Stages	p. 184
Temporal Parts	p. 188
A Question of Priorities	p. 192
Spatiotemporal Continuity	p. 196
Analyzing Bodily Identity	p. 201
Epistemological Priorities	p. 202
Matter, Causality, and Stereotypes of Identity	p. 211
Optimal Cases	p. 211
Compositional and Causal Continuity	p. 216
Stereotypes of Identity	p. 227
A Sense of Unity	p. 236
Criteria of Unity	p. 236
Unity and Similarity	p. 239
Conventionalism	p. 244
An "Empiricist" Explanation	p. 249
Focusing on Objects	p. 255
Conclusion	p. 262
Natural Kinds and Natural Units	p. 264
Kinds and Units	p. 264
Kinds and Similarity Classes	p. 267
Is the Class of Units a Kind?	p. 270
Kinds and Individuation	p. 274
The Basis of Kinds and Units	p. 278
Constraints on Self-Identity	p. 286
A Strange Identity Concept	p. 287
Metaphysical Constraints	p. 293
Pragmatic Constraints	p. 297
Psychological Constraints	p. 301
The Sense of Self	p. 307
Index	p. 313
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Concept of Identity

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials