Identifier

“ I would not wish a man to hang through any identification I could make."
"No man hangs on simple identification. We shall have to prove the crime, madam, but identification is important; even such as you can make." ”

“ Simple identity or non-identity is the ultimate state to which every assertion may be reduced; and we shall, therefore, first ask, from what identities, &c., can other identities, &c., be produced? Again, since we name objects in species, each species consisting of a number of individuals, and since our assertion may include all or only part of a species, it is further necessary to ask, in every instance, to what extent the conclusion drawn is true, whether of all, or only of part? ”

“ Whenever the inquiry into the definition of the name of any real object consists of anything else than a mere comparison of authorities, we tacitly assume that a meaning must be found for the name, compatible with its continuing to denote, if possible all, but at any rate the greater or the more important part, of the things of which it is commonly predicated. ”

“ The only adequate definition of a name is, as already remarked, one which declares the facts, and the whole of the facts, which the name involves in its signification. But with most persons the object of a definition does not embrace so much; they look for nothing more, in a definition, than a guide to the correct use of the term—a protection against applying it in a manner inconsistent with custom and convention. ”

“ A general, which is as much as to say a significant, name, is indeed mostly introduced because we have a signification to express by it; because we need a word by means of which to predicate the attributes which it connotes. But it is also true that a name is sometimes introduced because we have found it convenient to create a class; because we have thought it useful for the regulation of our mental operations, that a certain group of objects should be thought of together. ”

“ Not only do we give names to concrete things but we give names to specific attributes and to relations. As we organize and analyze our experiences, there appear uniformities, principles, laws. To these we give names, such as white, black, red, weight, length, thickness, justice, truth, sin, crime, heat, cold, mortal, immortal, evolution, disintegration, love, hate, envy, jealousy, possible, impossible, probable, etc. ”

“ A Description, I conceive, can only be ranked among Definitions, when taken (as in the case of the zoological definition of man) to fulfill the true office of a Definition, by declaring the connotation given to a word in some special use, as a term of science or art: which special connotation of course would not be expressed by the proper definition of the word in its ordinary employment. ”

“ Thus by discoveries of identity we are enabled to explain the world, to assign the causes of things, to dissipate in part the mysteriousness that everywhere surrounds us.
When a discovery of identification is made among particulars hitherto looked upon as diverse, the interest created is all-sufficient to secure our appreciation. ”

“ The entire point of using identifiers is to relate textually separated constructions. we depend on alpha-conversion to give all variables distinct names (by 'names' we really mean
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47 "compile-time data structures") so that the information for variables which the user happened to give the same name will not be confused.) The second pass (TRIV-ANALYZE) locates "trivial" portions of the program.
(Cf. [wand and Friedman] .) Constants and variables are trivial; an IF-expressions is trivial iff the predicate, consequent, and alternative are all trivial ”

“ All statements are confirmed by some argument or other, either by that which is derived from persons, or by that which is deduced from circumstances. Now we consider that these different things belong to persons, a name, nature, a way of life, fortune, custom, affection, pursuits, intentions, actions, accidents, orations. A name is that which is given to each separate person, so that each is called by his own proper and fixed appellation. To define nature itself is difficult, but to enumerate those parts of it which we require for the laying down of these precepts is more easy. ”

“ It is even conceivable that I might know every single individual of whom a given name could be with truth affirmed, and yet could not be said to know the meaning of the name. A child knows who are its brothers and sisters, long before it has any definite conception of the nature of the facts which are involved in the signification of those words. ”

“ In like manner, the established grouping of objects under a common name, even when founded only on a gross and general resemblance, is evidence, in the first place, that the resemblance is obvious, and therefore considerable ”

“ Numbers represent themselves. Atomic symbols are used as identifiers (with the conventional exception of T and NIL, which are conceptually treated as constants) . All other constructs are represented as lists. ”

“ Indeed, nomenclature, in a systematic point of view, is as much, perhaps more, a consequence than a cause of extended knowledge. Any one may give an arbitrary name to a thing, merely to be able to talk of it ”

“ In adopting a phraseology at variance with that which so high an authority, and one which I am less likely than any other person to undervalue, has deliberately sanctioned, I have been influenced by the urgent necessity for a term exclusively appropriated to express the manner in which a concrete general name serves to mark the attributes which are involved in its signification. ”

“ The name, being a many-worded one, may consist, in the first place, of a general name, capable therefore in itself of being affirmed of more things than one, but which is, in the second place, so limited by other words joined with it, that the entire expression can only be predicated of one object, consistently with the meaning of the general term. ”

“ The various kinds of definition which these distinctions give rise to, and the purposes to which they are respectively subservient, will be minutely considered in the proper place.
§ 3. According to the above view of essential propositions, no proposition can be reckoned such which relates to an individual by name, that is, in which the subject is a proper name. Individuals have no essences. When the schoolmen talked of the essence of an individual, they did not mean the properties implied in its name, for the names of individuals imply no properties. ”

“ In this last case, again, we may either compose our definition of as many connotative names as there are attributes, each attribute being connoted by one, as, Man is a corporeal, organized, animated, rational being, shaped so and so; or we employ names which connote several of the attributes at once, as, Man is a rational animal, shaped so and so. ”

“ But as many things are joined in pairs by association, which do not receive relative names, the cause may still be inquired of the classification. What is the reason that some pairs do, while many more do not, receive relative names? The cause is the same by which we are guided in imposing other names. As the various combinations of ideas are far too numerous for naming, and we are obliged to make a selection, we name those which we find it of most importance to have named, omitting the rest. ”

“ The ideas of identity and distinction originate in the ideas of being and of not-being; and thus the idea of copulative being, which affirms the identity of a predicate with a subject, flows also in a manner from the idea of substantive being. ”

“ First then, 'Tis thought that every Name hath, or ought to have, one only precise and settled Signification, which inclines Men to think there are certain abstract, determinate Ideas, which constitute the true and only immediate Signification of each general Name. ”

“ A proper name is but an unmeaning mark which we connect in our minds with the idea of the object, in order that whenever the mark meets our eyes or occurs to our thoughts, we may think of that individual object. ”

“ If in all judgments there is affirmation of identity, or non-identity, and all our cognitions either begin or end in a judgment, it would seem that they all ought to be reduced to a simple perception of identity. The general formula of our cognitions will then be: A is A, or, a thing is itself. ”

“ Hence it appears that the term by its very name indicates that it is arrived at by an analysis of the proposition. It is the judgement or proposition that is the true unit of thought and speech. The proposition as a whole is prior in conception to the terms which are its parts: but the parts must come before the whole in the synthetic order of treatment.
§ 60. A term is the same thing as a name or noun.
§ 61. A name is a word, or collection of words, which serves as a mark to recall or transmit the idea of a thing, either in itself or through some of its attributes. ”

“ Recognition is its only purpose; and the law permits, it has been said, that a man should have one name for Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and another for Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. The essence of a name is a reference to unique identity; it employs meaning only to establish identity. ”

“ As we have occasion to speak of things; animals, vegetables, minerals; so we have occasion to speak of the marks, which we are under the necessity of using, in order to record or to communicate our thoughts respecting them. We cannot record or communicate our thoughts respecting names, as man, tree, horse, to walk, to fly, to eat, to converse, without marks for them. We proceed in the case of names, as we do in other cases. We form them into classes, some more, some less, comprehensive, and give a name to each. ”

“ And here I can not omit to notice an oversight committed by some eminent thinkers; who have said that the cause of our using general names is the infinite multitude of individual objects, which, making it impossible to have a name for each, compels us to make one name serve for many. ”

“ If we read the items of information attached to each name, apart from their fellows attached to succeeding names, we shall have simply a set of facts about each name, which in their combination make a strong impression of the vigor and greatness of humanity in those days, and which suggest no chronological inference. ”

“ And in order to be scrupulously correct it ought to be said, that in every case in which we predicate a general name, we affirm, not absolutely that the object possesses the properties designated by the name, but that it either possesses those properties, or if it does not, at any rate resembles the things which do so, more than it resembles any other things. ”

“ Thus I would make bold to affirm that almost all words have been originally general terms, because it would happen very rarely that man would invent a name, expressly and without a reason, to denote this or that individual. ”

“ To define a name is to give a precise statement of its meaning or connotation. The name to be defined is the subject of a proposition, whose predicate is a list of the fundamental qualities common to the things or processes which the subject denotes, and on account of possessing which qualities this name is given to them. ”

“ The philosopher chooses for his connotation of the name the attributes most important, either directly, or as the differentiæ leading to the most interesting propria. The enquiry into the more hidden agreement on which these obvious agreements depend, often itself arises under the guise of enquiries into the definition of a name. ”