We have all asked ourselves: who am I? The question of identity is something we have all wondered about. Throughout history, various thinkers have attempted to answer this conundrum. One of them is Thomas Hobbes, a British philosopher born in 1588. He attempts to answer this question by examining it through an ancient Greek tale. His philosophy addresses the question, “what makes something the SAME thing over time, even if it undergoes changes?” Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay. Theseus owns and sails a ship. Every month he sails to a new port and has an old plank on his ship replaced with a brand new plank. After 10 years, not a single original wooden plank remains in Theseus' ship. Unbeknownst to Theseus, the ship repairer has saved all the old planks he removed from Theseus' ship. Then, slowly, he builds a new ship and when 10 years have passed, he has acquired all the original planks of 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 it the ship with all new parts or the rebuilt ship with all original parts? With this question and idea in mind, Hobbes he then tries to explain and justify his answers through two different principles. The first is the “gradual substitution principle”, where if object X is composed of different parts, and a single part of that object is replaced, producing the Object Y, then Objects X and Y are the same object. While the second principle states that, if Object 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”. there would not be two ships, but only one. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay So with this thought, Hobbes concluded that when it comes to identity; “Is man, when old and when young, the same being, or matter, in number?” it is clear that, due to the biological change it undergoes, it would not be composed of the same tissues. Therefore, Hobbes states that if a person changes gradually, then he is still the same person. Since a person cannot have the same body throughout his life.