Problems with Other Interpretations of Locke’s Account of Identity

This chapter contrasts the kind-dependent interpretation with other interpretations that have dominated the secondary literature on Locke’s account of identity and aims to offer further support for why his approach to questions of identity is best interpreted as kind-dependent. It shows that alternative interpretations are often based on metaphysical assumptions that Locke would be reluctant to endorse. The chapter pays particularly close attention to disputes between defenders of coincidence and Relative Identity interpretations of Locke. The disputes are commonly traced back to a disagreement about the question of how many things exist at a particular spatiotemporal location. Rather than siding with one position, the author’s strategy is to identify problems that arise for both types of interpretations, and to show how the kind-dependent interpretation avoids them. Moreover, she argues that other interpretive options such as four-dimensionalism or mode interpretations are also based on questionable metaphysical assumptions.

Relative Identity and the Doctrine of the Trinity

The doctrine of the Trinity maintains that there are exactly three divine Persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) but only one God. The philosophical problem raised by this doctrine is well known. On the one hand, the doctrine seems clearly to imply that the divine Persons are numerically distinct. How else could they be ‘three’ rather than one? On the other hand, it seems to imply that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are identical. If each Person is divine, how else could there be exactly ‘one’ God? But the divine Persons can’t be both distinct and identical. Thus, the doctrine appears to be incoherent. Some try to solve this problem by appeal to the view that identity is sortal-relative. This chapter argues that this strategy is unsuccessful as a stand-alone solution to the problem of the Trinity.

Anselm, the Holy Trinity, and the Relative Identity Thesis

Anselm’s On the Incarnation of the Word is presented as a letter to Pope Urban II for the purpose of exposing and correcting the theological errors of Roscelin of Compiègne, who maintained that since only the Son became incarnate, we must conclude that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are numerically distinct substances. In this paper I argue that Anselm’s rejection of this conclusion involves an account of the Holy Trinity which includes a strongly relativized conception of identity, that is, one which allows an object x and an object y to be the same F, but different Gs. I further contend that Anselm buttresses this account with two non-theological examples of relative identity. Although it may well be the case that advocates of Latin Trinitarianism are generally committed to such an account, since they affirm that the Father is the same substance as the Son but not the same person as the Son, I take Anselm’s defense of this position to be theologically significant, first, because it may well be the first explicit defense of Relative Trinitarianism, and second, because Anselm’s position as a bishop and a Doctor of the Church is (for Catholics, at least) an indication of its theological soundness.

Identity

This chapter expounds, formulates in analytical style, and defends Locke’s general view of identity. It interprets Locke’s puzzling statement that existing at the same time and place isn’t necessary for synchronic identity. It focuses mainly, following Locke, on diachronic identity. Locke never suggests that X is diachronically identical with Y iff they house the same substance-substratum; indeed his account of diachronic identity undermines the argument from change for substance-substratum. For Locke, X is diachronically identical with Y iff X is spatiotemporally continuous with Y, and every segment of the space-time path between X and Y is occupied either by something of the same sort as X or by something of the same sort as Y. This account applies to inanimate objects, plants, and animals. Its appeal to sortals makes it a version of the “relative identity” view. The chapter defends that view against the charge that it is self-contradictory.

Identity uncertainty and UK–Scottish relations: Different dynamics depending on relative identity centrality

Drawing on uncertainty-identity theory, we investigated how people respond differently to identity uncertainty at a superordinate (i.e., UK) or subgroup (i.e., Scottish) level depending on the subjective self-conceptual centrality of subgroup relative to superordinate group; altering superordinate and subgroup identification and attitude toward subgroup relations to the superordinate group in the context of Scotland’s bid for independence from the UK ( N = 115). Hierarchical regression analyses confirmed our prediction. Where the subgroup was self-conceptually more central than the superordinate group, subgroup identity uncertainty strengthened superordinate identification (H1) and weakened subgroup identification. Strengthened superordinate identification weakened support for subgroup separation. However, where the superordinate group was self-conceptually more central than the subgroup, superordinate identity uncertainty was not associated with superordinate and subgroup identification (H2).

Identical Legal Entities and the Trinity: Relative-Social Trinitarianism

Goetz outlined legal models of identical entities that include natural persons who are identical to a coregency and natural persons who are identical to a general partnership. Those entities cohere with the formula logic of relative identity. This essay outlines the coexistence of relative identity and numerical identity in the models of identical legal entities, which is an account of impure relative identity. These models support the synthesis of Relative Trinitarianism and Social Trinitarianism, which I call Relative-Social Trinitarianism.

Trinity, generality, and dominance

I defend a relative identity solution to the identity puzzle posed by the doctrine of the Trinity. It has been argued that relative identity theories which admit absolute identity, such as the account proposed here, do not succeed in saving the doctrine of the Trinity from logical incoherence. I show that this argument fails. Relative identity theories that admit absolute identity are logically conservative, metaphysically innocent, and unproblematic. And, given the account I propose we can, without incurring any logical or metaphysical costs, hold that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the same being but not the same trinitarian person.