Three Meanings of "Identity" in Kant, Fichte and Hegel

This paper distinguishes between three meanings of "identity": logical identity, identity of self-consciousness, and personal identity. It raises the question of how these three meanings are related to one another and reconstructs Kant's, Fichte's and Hegel's answers to this question. Kant conceives of logical identity and the identity of self-consciousness as two different species of the genus "identity". Fichte holds that logical identity is to be deduced from the identity of self-consciousness. Nevertheless, Kant and Fichte agree that "personal identity" is homonymous with these two meanings of identity. Hegel objects to this, arguing that identity of self-consciousness is only conceivable as an aspect of personal identity and that logical identity is an abstraction of the understanding.