Intentional identity revisited

Ahti Pietarinen*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

Abstract

The problem of intentional identity, as originally offered by Peter Geach, says that there can be an anaphoric link between an indefinite term and a pronoun across a sentential boundary and across propositional attitude contexts, where the actual existence of an individual for the indefinite term is not presupposed. In this paper, a semantic resolution to this elusive puzzle is suggested, based on a new quantified intensional logic and game-theoretic semantics (GTS) of imperfect information. This constellation leads to an expressive intensional language with a property of informational independence, argued to produce a purely semantic explication to intentional identity statements. One consequence is that various extra-logical and pragmatic factors become of secondary concern; it is possible to solve the puzzle by logico-semantic methods, albeit somewhat radically renewed ones.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)147-188
Number of pages42
JournalNordic Journal of Philosophical Logic
Volume6
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2001

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