What grounds the facts about what is identical to/distinct from what? A natural answer is: the facts about what exists. Despite its prima facie appeal, this view has received surprisingly little attention in the literature. Moreover, those who have discussed it have been inclined to reject it because of the following important challenge: why should the existence of some individuals ground their identity in some cases and their distinctness in others? (Burgess 2012, Shumener 2020b). This paper offers a sustained defense of the view. The first half provides some positive motivations in terms of other natural principles involving ground. The second half considers various ways of distilling the challenge into a precise objection to the view, and argues that none of the resulting objections proves persuasive.

中文翻译：

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扎根存在的身份

关于什么与什么相同/不同的事实依据是什么？一个自然的答案是：关于存在的事实。尽管这种观点表面上看起来很有吸引力，但令人惊讶的是，这种观点在文献中却很少受到关注。此外，那些讨论过它的人倾向于拒绝它，因为存在以下重要挑战：为什么某些个体的存在应在某些情况下建立其身份而在其他情况下建立其独特性？（Burgess 2012，Shumener 2020b）。本文对这一观点进行了持续的辩护。前半部分就涉及地面的其他自然原理提供了一些积极的动机。后半部分考虑了将挑战提炼为对观点的精确反对意见的各种方法，并认为由此产生的反对意见都没有说服力。