Abstract
This paper is concerned with the problem of the validity of Leibniz's principle of the identity of indiscernibles in physics. After briefly surveying how the question is currently discussed in recent literature and which is the actual meaning of the principle for what concerns physics, we address the question of the physical validity of Leibniz's principle in terms of the existence of a sufficient number of naming predicates in the formal language of physics. This approach allows us to obtain in a formal way the result that a principle of the identity of indiscernibles can be justified in the domain of classical physics, while this is not the case in the domain of quantum physics.
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Castellani, E., Mittelstaedt, P. Leibniz's Principle, Physics, and the Language of Physics. Foundations of Physics 30, 1587–1604 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026489931449
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026489931449