Grades of discrimination: indiscernibility, symmetry, and relativity

DOI10.1215/00294527-2017-0007MaRDI QIDQ1676355zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Tim Button

Publication date 6 November 2017

Published in Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1408.1672, https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/247954

zbMATH Keywords

identity of indiscerniblesequality-free model theorygrades of indiscernibilitygrades of relativitygrades of symmetryidentity-free model theory

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Philosophy of mathematics (00A30) Interpolation, preservation, definability (03C40) Model theory (03C99)

Abstract: There are several relations which may fall short of genuine identity, but which behave like identity in important respects. Such grades of discrimination have recently been the subject of much philosophical and technical discussion. This paper aims to complete their technical investigation. Grades of indiscernibility are defined in terms of satisfaction of certain first-order formulas. Grades of symmetry are defined in terms of symmetries on a structure. Both of these families of grades of discrimination have been studied in some detail. However, this paper also introduces grades of relativity, defined in terms of relativeness correspondences. This paper explores the relationships between all the grades of discrimination, exhaustively answering several natural questions that have so far received only partial answers. It also establishes which grades can be captured in terms of satisfaction of object-language formulas, and draws connections with definability theory.

Recommendations

• On discernibility and symmetries
• Identity and discernibility in philosophy and logic
• Identity and indiscernibility
• On Kinds of Indiscernibility in Logic and Metaphysics
• Discernibility by symmetries

Cited in

(3)

• Identity and discernibility in philosophy and logic
• On discernibility and symmetries
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3935007 (Why is no real title available?)

This page was built for publication: Grades of discrimination: indiscernibility, symmetry, and relativity

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q1676355)