This paper discusses identity criteria for individuals and properties, revealing contradictions based on grounding principles.
Many philosophers believe that identity facts are non-fundamental facts, facts grounded in other facts. In this paper, we discuss what might ground the identity facts for individuals and properties by examining two explanatory identity criteria. One criterion, which we call the Explanatory Leibniz’s Law, is for individuals. The other, which we call the Explanatory Intensional Criterion, is for properties. We argue that, when combined with the widely accepted claim that grounding chains do not contain loops, these two criteria give rise to a contradiction.
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Nizzardo et al. (2025) studied this question.
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