ABSTRACT
A distinction exists between two approaches to identity statements. On a conceptualist approach one can only say ‘a is the same so-and-so as b’ where ‘so-and-so’ is a SORTAL term. On a realist approach ‘so-and-so’ can be replaced by a non-sortal term like ‘thing’ or ‘object’. The identity is here given, as it were, in the world itself and does not depend on the concepts we apply. It is a further question, however, whether identity is relative, in the sense that a might be the same so-and-so, but not the same such-and-such, as b, e.g. was Nixon the same official (namely the American president), though not the same man, as Eisenhower?
