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and we need to stop using this ill-defined secular canard
I have in so many contexts found this term "identity" used, and every time it is used, I sit and ask: "what... are you referring to exactly?"
The trouble is manifold. On one hand, it doesn't arise from tradition. In philosophical tradition, we have many more words to more accurately describe what is being referenced. I posed the question, "What is identity" to one friend of mine and he gave perhaps the best answer:
"When I think of identity I think of essence as St. Thomas uses it. So what something is by its nature."
The trouble is... this word gets used in a myriad of ways which is profoundly unhelpful.
The engineer-brain I'm coming from
"All models are wrong. Some models are useful." - George Box
This has become something of a modern-day proverb in engineering. Maybe it suggests a deep relativism, but I don't honestly believe so. What is meant by this?
"Universals really do exist in the intellect, but outside the mind, only as instantiated in individual beings."