Identity and Discrimination (eBook)

Timothy Williamson is the Wykeham Professor of Logic at the University of Oxford. He has previously taught at the University of Edinburgh, Trinity College Dublin, and as a visitor at MIT, Princeton, the Australian National University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is the author of Vagueness (1994), Knowledge and its Limits (2000), The Philosophy of Philosophy (Blackwell, 2007), and Modal Logic as Metaphysics (2013). He is a Fellow of the British Academy and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Preface to the Revised Edition ix

Preface to the First Edition xiii

Introduction 1

1 Concepts of Indiscriminability 4

1.1 Indiscriminability and Cognition 5

1.2 Formal Features of Indiscriminability 10

1.3 The Intentionality of Indiscriminability 14

1.4 Direct and Indirect Discrimination 20

1.5 Further Reflections 21

2 Logics of Indiscriminability 24

2.1 Logical Apparatus 24

2.2 The Non-Transitivity of Indiscriminability 34

3 Paradoxes of Indiscriminability 43

4 Concepts of Phenomenal Character 48

4.1 Presentations of Characters 50

4.2 Presentation-Sensitivity 54

4.3 The Identity of Characters 62

5 Logics of Phenomenal Character 65

5.1 Maximal M-Relations 65

5.2 Ignorance and Indeterminacy 73

5.3 Matching the Same Experiences 82

6 Paradoxes of Phenomenal Character 88

6.1 The Paradox of Observational Predicates 89

6.2 The Paradox of Phenomenal Predicates 93

6.3 The Failure of Observationality 99

6.4 Sorites Arguments and Necessary Ignorance 103

7 Generalizations 109

7.1 Maximal M-Relations as Minimal Revisions 109

7.2 Examples 114

7.3 Necessary Conditions for Personal Identity 116

7.4 Sufficient Conditions 121

7.5 Close Relations 123

8 Modal and Temporal Paradoxes 126

8.1 A Modal Paradox 126

8.2 Two Temporal Paradoxes 135

8.3 Comparisons 142

9 Criteria of Identity 144

9.1 Forms 144

9.2 Functions 148

Appendix Maximal M-Relations and the Axiom of Choice 154

Notes (to the First Edition) 158

Additional Notes (to the Revised Edition) 165

References (to the First Edition) 171

Additional References (to the Revised Edition) 176

Index 179

"The decades of research since Identity and Discrimination
was first published have shown how badly a theory of
indiscriminability is needed for understanding a wide range of
philosophical problems. Williamson's discussion has numerous
applications in metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of
mind."

--Susanna Siegel, Harvard University

"This is the first book of one of our greatest philosophers.
Unrelenting in his clear, thorough style, Williamson presents a
groundbreaking epistemic account of indiscriminability. The unified
vision underlying some of Williamson's best-known subsequent
work---on vagueness, identity, and knowledge---emerges here."

--Delia Graff Fara, Princeton University