ABSTRACT
The concept of 'identity' when applied to such very basic categories as objects, properties, events and persons, forms a cluster of themes in metaphysics. The term 'identification' may be usefully introduced to cover the former aspects. That is, when a person is said to have a certain identity owing to some characteristics she has, and with which she identifies, then identity is being thought of in its subjective aspects. Chromosomal ways of defining gender identity are similarly objective. But biological criteria are not the only criteria that are routinely invoked. A working class person who exhibits no proletarian consciousness nor any of the solidarity and forms of behaviour appropriate to the class, and none of whose behaviour reflects an unconscious betrayal of such solidarity or consciousness, is nevertheless said to have proletarian class identity, albeit with a 'false consciousness'.
