Supporting Material Vol 1 - Colourful Language

Objectivist Philosophy
The Law of Identity
In logic, the law of identity states that an object is the
same as itself: A : A. Any reflexive relation upholds the
law of identity. When discussing equality, the fact that
“A is A” is a tautology.
“That everything is necessarily the same with itself
and different from another” is the self-evident first
principle of linguistics, for it governs the designation
or ‘identification’ of individual concepts within any
symbolic language, so as to avoid ambiguity in the
communicating of concepts between the users of that
language. Such a principle is necessary because a
‘symbolic designator’ (name, word, sign, etc.) has no
inherent meaning of its own, but derives its meaning
from a cognizant agent who correlates the given
designator with a conventionally prescribed concept
that has been previously learned and stored in their
memory. To put it another way, the principle (law) of
identity states that although it is permissible to call
the same concept by many different names, words,
signs, etc., a fact that makes it possible for there to be
different languages, it is not permissible, within any
single linguistic group, to call different concepts by the
same designator, else the users of the language will not
know which of the possible concepts they are intended
to call to mind when they encounter that designator.
The exception, that proves the rule, is where we are able
to readily discern which of the different concepts we
are intended to call to mind by the context in which the
designator is used, for example, in the case where the
same word denotes both a noun (a bear) and a verb (to
bear).
History
Parmenides the Eleatic (circa BCE. 490) formulated the
principle Being is (eon emmenai) as the foundation of his
philosophy. Aristotle identifies the principle in Book VII
of the Metaphysics:
Now “why a thing is itself” is a meaningless inquiry
(for—to give meaning to the question ‘why’—the fact
or the existence of the thing must already be evident—
e.g., that the moon is eclipsed—but the fact that a
thing is itself is the single reason and the single cause
to be given in answer to all such questions as why the
man is man, or the musician musical, unless one were to
answer, ‘because each thing is inseparable from itself,
and its being one just meant this.’ This, however, is
common to all things and is a short and easy way with
the question.)
—Metaphysics, Book VII, Part 17
Both Thomas Aquinas (Met. IV., lect. 6) and Duns Scotus
(Quaest. sup. Met. IV., Q. 3) follow Aristotle. Antonius
Andreas, the Spanish disciple of Scotus (d. 1320) argues
that the first place should belong to the principle ‘Every
Being is a Being’ (Omne Ens est Ens, Qq. in Met. IV.,
Q. 4), but the late scholastic writer Francisco Suarez
(Disp. Met. III., § 3) disagreed, also preferring to follow
Aristotle.
Leibniz claimed that the principle of Identity, which
he expresses as ‘Everything is what it is,’ is the first
primitive truth of reason which is affirmative, and the
Principle of contradiction, is the first negative truth
(Nouv. Ess. IV., 2, § i), arguing that “the statement that a
thing is what it is, is prior to the statement that it is not
another thing” (Nouv. Ess. IV.. 7, § 9). Wilhelm Wundt
credits Gottfried Leibniz with the symbolic formulation,
“A is A.
Locke (Essay Concerning Human Understanding IV. vii.
iv. (“Of Maxims”) says:
... whenever the mind with attention considers any
proposition, so as to perceive the two ideas signified by
the terms, and affirmed or denied one of the other to be
the same or different; it is presently and infallibly certain
of the truth of such a proposition; and this equally
whether these propositions be in terms standing for
more general ideas, or such as are less so: e.g. whether
the general idea of Being be affirmed of itself, as in this
proposition, “whatsoever is, is”; or a more particular
idea be affirmed of itself, as “a man is a man”; or,
“whatsoever is white is white” ...