A new puzzle about intentional identity

Abstract

Because such statements appear to assert an identity between two objects of thought, Geach refers to them as statements of "intentional identity". Uses of an intentional identity statement such as (1) may differ along various dimensions, and before I explain just how Geach's puzzle arises it will help to distinguish at least one of these dimensions at an intuitive level. Some uses of (1) commit the speaker to the existence of a witch, or at least to the existence of a real object that Hob (and possibly Nob) take to be a witch. Other uses of (1) do not commit the speaker to the existence of anything Hob's and Nob's beliefs are about. At this point I am speaking only about linguistic intuitions regarding possible uses of the sentence; philosophical questions about what sense can be made of these intuitions are not yet being raised. That certain uses of (1) commit the speaker to the existence of an object on which Hob's and Nob's beliefs are focused is clear enough, but it might be helpful to bolster intuitions about the other kind of use by considering two situations in which a use of (1) would be true even though no existing object is the common focus on Hob's and Nob's beliefs.