Grades of discrimination: indiscernibility, symmetry, and relativity

DOI10.1215/00294527-2017-0007zbMATH Open1386.00057arXiv1408.1672OpenAlexW3098868051MaRDI QIDQ1676355FDOQ1676355

Authors: Tim Button 

Publication date: 6 November 2017

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

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.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1408.1672

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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)

Cited In (3)

• On discernibility and symmetries
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Identity and discernibility in philosophy and logic

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