Significant parts and identity of artifacts

Abstract

By assigning numerical values to the atomic parts of a given artifact and, then, assigning the maximum of them to the artifact itself, we get a reasonable notion of significance for the parts of artifacts. Using this notion one can define artifact identity in a precise way. Namely, the identity is preserved exactly when all the significant parts are preserved. We show that this notion of identity has all the basic properties that one would intuitively expect. A limit case is also considered. © 1993, Duke University Press. All Rights Reserved.