We have all asked ourselves: who am I? The question of identity is a question we all ask ourselves. Throughout history, many thinkers have attempted to answer this riddle. Among them, Thomas Hobbes, British philosopher born in 1588. He tries to answer this question by approaching it through an old Greek tale. His philosophy addresses the question: “What makes something stay the SAME thing over time, even if it undergoes changes?” » Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Theseus owns and sails a ship. Every month he would sail to a new port and have an old plank on his ship replaced with a brand new one. After 10 years, not a single original wooden plank remains in Theseus' ship. Unbeknownst to Theseus, the ship repairer has kept all the old planks that he removes from Theseus' ship. He then slowly built a new ship and after 10 years, he acquired all of the original planks from Theseus' ship and arranged them exactly as they were in Theseus' original ship. With this, Hobbes then asks: "Which of the two existing ships is numerically the same ship as Theseus' original ship?" » Is this the ship with all new parts, or the rebuilt ship with all original parts? With this question and idea in mind, Hobbes then attempts to explain and justify his answers through two different principles. The first is the "principle of progressive replacement", whereas if object X is made up of different parts and only one part of that object is replaced, producing object Y, then objects X and Y are the same object. Whereas the second principle states that, if object X and object Y share all and only the same exact parts, arranged in exactly the same way, then objects X and Y are the same object. Keeping these two principles in mind, we conclude that both principles cannot be true, because if they were, it would violate the law of “transitivity of identity”. Whereas if A = B and B = A, then there would not be two ships, but only one. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized article from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay Hence this thought, Hobbes concluded that when it comes to identity; “Is a man, old and young, the same being or the same matter in number? it is clear that due to the biological change it is undergoing, it would not be made of the same tissues. Therefore, Hobbes states that if a person changes gradually, then he or she remains the same person. Since a person cannot have the same body all his life.