Identity (philosophy)

Essence () has various meanings and uses for different thinkers and in different contexts. It is used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property or set of properties or attributes that make an entity the entity it is or, expressed negatively, without which it would lose its identity. Essence is contrasted with accident, which is a property or attribute the entity has accidentally or contingently, but upon which its identity does not depend.

thought experiment concerning the continuity of identity of an item which has all its parts replaced

In Buddhism, the term anattā () is the doctrine of "non-self" – that no unchanging, permanent self exists, and is the absence of essence in any phenomenon. While often interpreted as a doctrine denying the existence of a self, anatman is more accurately described as a strategy to attain non-attachment by recognizing everything as impermanent, while staying silent on the ultimate existence of an unchanging essence. In contrast, dominant schools of Hinduism assert the existence of Ātman as pure awareness or witness-consciousness, "reify[ing] consciousness as an eternal self".

relation each thing bears to itself alone

Essentialism is the view that objects have a set of attributes that are necessary to their identity. In early Western thought, Platonic idealism held that all things have such an "essence"—an "idea" or "form". In Categories, Aristotle similarly proposed that all objects have a substance that, as George Lakoff put it, "make the thing what it is, and without which it would be not that kind of thing". The contrary view—non-essentialism—denies the need to posit such an "essence". Essentialism has been controversial from its beginning. In the Parmenides dialogue, Plato depicts Socrates questioning

philosophical idea of a person having a unique existence

philosophical, psychological and anthropological concept that refers to the opposite of one's own identity

logic statement saying that each thing is the same as itself

set of properties by which one entity is distinguished from another

impossibility for separate objects to have all their properties in common

defines, among other things, the conditions of identity that make one subject of experience distinct from all others

distinction that separates a concept from the objects which are particular instances of the concept

Endurantism or endurance theory is a philosophical theory of persistence and identity. According to the endurantist view, material objects are persisting three-dimensional individuals wholly present at every moment of their existence, which goes with an A-theory of time. This conception of an individual as always present is opposed to perdurantism or four-dimensionalism, which maintains that an object is a series of temporal parts or stages, requiring a B-theory of time. The use of "endure" and "perdure" to distinguish two ways in which an object can be thought to persist can be traced to Davi

Perdurantism or perdurance theory is a philosophical theory of persistence and identity. In metaphysics the debate over persistence currently involves three competing theories—one three-dimensionalist theory called "endurantism" and two four-dimensionalist theories called "perdurantism" and "exdurantism". For a perdurantist, all objects are considered to be four-dimensional "worms" that make up the different regions of spacetime. It is a fusion of all the perdurant's instantaneous time slices compiled and blended into a complete mereological whole. Perdurantism posits that temporal parts alone

thesis in philosophy of mind

philosophical concept

relation of resemblance between objects

concept in population ethics

philosophical question

book by Thomas Nagel