Re: Entity and Identity

Brian wrote:

>> It depends on what you mean by that.  The potential problem is not
>> in considering a sum of properties as a property, but in the 'all'.
>>
>> If you define the haeccity of an entity type as the collection of all
>> qualitative properties we distinguish for that object type, then of course
>> haeccity can be regarded as a property of such objects. It just becomes
>> another way of saying that all properties of a relation form a key.
>
>I think we're talking across purposes. You seem to be saying that
>properties belong to an object type, when in fact they belong to the
>objects themselves. For example, 'being red' is a property, but is
>'being red or being blue or being yellow' a property, or is it a
>predicate?

I can't tell exactly what you mean by a property. I'll keep guessing until you define it in more detail.

My guess was that by a 'qualitative property' you mean something like a relational attribute, which applies in principle to each object of a particular type within the context of a particular conceptual model used for a particular purpose. You may also mean anything that can be said about an object at all, without having any sort of categorization of objects into types in mind. However, that way properties (and objects themselves) become a lot fuzzier in meaning. How do the red colors of this tube of toothpaste compare to the red colors in GraphViz diagrams? Just an example.

-- 
Reinier