ABSTRACT
The introduction of the reduplication argument into the personal-identity controversy provoked disputes and developments which were wholly new to the previous twentieth-century debate. The framework was fixed and remained so until as late as 1956 – until, in that year, Bernard Williams published his seminal paper, ‘Personal Identity and Individuation’, in which he put forward the reduplication argument, which transformed subsequent discussion of the problem and led philosophers to the formulation of positions that were wholly new. A defender of the ‘best-candidate’ approach to artefact identity may object that while these italicised propositions are admittedly absurd, he is not committed to them. The proponent of the multiple-occupancy thesis can defend their position against the charge that it is straightforwardly in conflict with common sense by claiming that, contrary to long-standing philosophical opinion, common-sense counting is not always in accordance with identity.
