The term ‘Same’ traverses the depth-psychology corpus along two intersecting axes: the ontological and the psychological. In the Platonic tradition — most fully elaborated in the Timaeus, Sophist, and Parmenides — ‘Same’ (to tauton) names one of the primordial metaphysical Forms alongside Existence and Difference, constituting the very structure of the World-Soul and conditioning all predication. This inheritance is decisive: whatever psychology later says about identity, individuation, or selfhood, it speaks against a backdrop in which sameness is a cosmological category, not merely a logical one. Ricoeur’s Oneself as Another offers the most sustained depth-psychological reworking of this tradition, distinguishing idem-identity (sameness through time, permanence of organization) from ipse-identity (selfhood as self-constancy), arguing that narrative is the medium in which their concrete dialectic is resolved. Hillman attacks sameness from the archetypal angle: genetic identity, even in monozygotic twins, is never actual identity — imagination, daimon, and the acorn’s singular calling fracture every presumption of human sameness. McGilchrist reinforces this with his claim that real time renders identical conditions impossible, so that no cause or effect ever literally recurs. The tension between sameness as metaphysical ground and sameness as psychological illusion animates the corpus throughout.
what is the meaning of these two words, ‘same’ and ‘other’? Are they two new kinds other than the three, and yet always of necessity intermingling with them
The Sophist establishes ‘Same’ and ‘Other’ as candidate primary Forms that necessarily intermingle with Being, Motion, and Rest, raising the question of whether they are irreducible categories or derivative ones.
, Sophist, -360thesis
it is by comparing a thing with itself in different times that we form the ideas of identity and diversity; ‘When therefore we demand whether anything be the same or no, it refers always to something that existed such a time in such a place’
Ricoeur, reading Locke, demonstrates that ‘sameness’ (idem-identity) is constituted by the operation of temporal comparison, distinguishing it from selfhood as instantaneous self-coincidence maintained through time.
, Oneself as Another, 1992thesis
it is within the framework of narrative theory that the concrete dialectic of selfhood and sameness — and not simply the nominal distinction between the two terms employed up until now — attains its fullest development
Ricoeur argues that the distinction between sameness and selfhood achieves genuine philosophical resolution only through narrative identity, not through abstract logical analysis.
, Oneself as Another, 1992thesis
Non-existence has been ruled out of the discussion… We are thus left with Existence, Sameness, Difference. It is carefully shown that these three Forms are wholly distinct.
The Timaeus commentary establishes Sameness as one of three irreducible all-pervading Forms structuring both Being and the World-Soul, distinct from and irreducible to Existence and Difference.
, Plato’s cosmology the Timaeus of Plato, 1997thesis
The same thing clearly cannot act or be acted upon in the same part or in relation to the same thing at the same time, in contrary ways; and therefore whenever this contradiction occurs in things apparently the same, we know that they are really not the same
Plato’s Principle of Opposites in the Republic uses logical sameness as the criterion by which apparent unity is revealed as real multiplicity, grounding the argument for tripartition of the soul.
, Republic, -380thesis
the Principle of Opposites, which says that the same thing cannot at the same time do opposites in the same respect and in relation to the same thing
Lorenz identifies the Principle of Opposites — the logical impossibility of a thing being the same while instantiating contraries — as the decisive premise in Plato’s argument for the soul’s partition.
, The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle, 2006supporting
if other than itself it would be other than one, and would not be one… if the same with other, it would be that other, and not itself; so that upon this supposition too, it would not have the nature of one
The Parmenides demonstrates that the One can be neither the same as nor other than itself or other things without self-contradiction, exposing the paradoxes inherent in predicating sameness of a pure unity.
, Parmenides, -370supporting
one partakes of being, which is not the same with one; the words ‘being’ and ‘one’ have different meanings
Parmenides establishes that ‘being’ and ‘one’ are not the same, initiating the analysis of how sameness and difference structure metaphysical predication.
, Parmenides, -370supporting
the same conditions can never, by definition, obtain in the life of the self, because each, artificially isolated, moment of its duration includes the entire past, which is, consequently, different for each moment
McGilchrist, following Bergson and Kolakowski, argues that the living self’s temporal constitution makes literal recurrence of the same conditions impossible, dissolving deterministic sameness into irreversible individuation.
, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World, 2021supporting
By freeing imagination, even identical twins are freed of their sameness.
Hillman contends that imagination is the psychological force that dissolves biological sameness, individuating even genetically identical persons through the autonomous activity of the daimon.
, The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling, 1996supporting
Plato has described its composition out of the three intermediate kinds of Existence, Sameness, and Difference; its division according to the intervals of the cosmic harmony; and its rational motions
The World-Soul in the Timaeus is literally composed of Sameness as one of three metaphysical ingredients, making the cosmic principle of identity a structural constituent of soul itself.
, Plato’s cosmology the Timaeus of Plato, 1997supporting
Seems people are individuals despite having the same
Hillman uses twin-study data to argue that shared genetic constitution does not produce psychological sameness, supporting his claim that a third factor beyond nature and nurture individuates persons.
, The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling, 1996supporting
Can one, in its entirety, be in many places at the same time? No; I see the impossibility of that. And if not in its entirety, then it is divided
The Parmenides uses the impossibility of spatial sameness across multiple locations to demonstrate that unity cannot remain undivided when distributed through being.
, Parmenides, -370supporting
different qualities have supervened in conformity with the same ratio of fitness the same absurdity will follow again if it is active by one quality and passive by another
Sorabji’s analysis of Philoponus demonstrates the logical difficulties arising when the same underlying ratio or blend must account for opposed active and passive qualities, illustrating the limits of sameness as explanatory principle in natural philosophy.
, Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation, 2000supporting
the reflexive pronoun soi also attains the same timeless range when it is added to the se in the infinitive mode
Ricoeur observes that the French reflexive pronoun achieves a timeless, omnipersonal range analogous to sameness-across-persons, providing the grammatical foundation for his philosophical analysis of selfhood.
, Oneself as Another, 1992aside
when I say: ‘The sail sits’, or: ‘The hand sits’, or: ‘A man sits’, the verb is always the same, used either in its original sense or metaphorically
Snell uses the linguistic phenomenon of a verb remaining ‘the same’ across literal and metaphorical uses to illustrate how Greek thought extended meaning through functional resemblance rather than identity.
, The discovery of the mind; the Greek origins of European, 1953aside