On Sameness and Identity: A Psychological Study: Being a Contribution to the Foundations of a Theory of KnowledgeFullerton, George Stuart
Philosophy
On Sameness and Identity: A Psychological Study: Being a Contribution to the Foundations of a Theory of Knowledge
Fullerton, George Stuart
Knowledge, Theory of
Twenty objects immediately known must not be confounded with twenty
"real" things not immediately known, and of which the objects are
supposed to be representatives. These two classes are the same with
each other only in sense seventh. I have discussed in detail in the
first part of my monograph the samenesses of "real" things, and it is
not necessary to repeat what I have said. It is enough to state that it
was there made evident that when we speak of a number of similar "real"
things as the same, we use the word in sense fourth, and have in mind
just the elements which are present when we speak of several similar
immediate objects of knowledge as the same. We are merely carrying
over to a set of imagined duplicates a distinction which we observe
in objects recognized as within consciousness. When, therefore, we
give twenty "real" things a common name, and form them into a class,
because they are alike, we mean that along with various other "real"
elements, each of these objects contains the "real" element x. The word
same means to us just what it does when we speak of twenty similar
immediate objects as the same. We have changed only the objects; we
have not changed the sameness and all that depends upon it. Two such
objects are the same in sense fourth, and never in sense first. If they
could be the same in sense first, they would not be two. When a man
undertakes to separate in thought the "real" x element from the other
"real" elements in two or more such objects, he should be careful, as
in the case of immediate objects, to make a complete separation and not
a partial one. He should see here, too, that the question whether the x
in one object and the x in another are strictly identical, is a foolish
one. "This x" and "that x" are not strictly identical, or they would
not be "this x" and "that x." Remove completely the "this" and the
"that" and all other differing elements--leave, that is, only x, and
the possibility of any such question simply disappears. If there still
seem to anyone ground for a question in the premises, it is evidence
that he is not considering merely x. He is trying to keep two things
two, and yet make them one.
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