 A word about the point of view of those who subscribe to the weak version of RI. The view (call it the ‘weak view’) is that ordinary identity relations concerning (largely) the world of contingency and change are equivalence relations answering to restricted forms of LL. The exact nature of the restriction depends on the equivalence relation itself, though there is an element of generality. The kinds of properties preserved by the same dog relation are intuitively the same kinds of properties as are preserved by the same cat relation. From a logical point of view the best that can be said is that any identity relation, like any equivalence relation, preserves a certain minimal set of properties. For suppose \(E\) is some equivalence relation. Let \(S\) be the set containing all formulas of the form \(E(x,y)\), and closed under the formation of negations, conjunctions, and quantification. Then \(E\) preserves any property expressed by a formula in \(S\). Furthermore, on this view, although absolutely distinct objects may be the same \(F\), absolutely identical objects cannot differ at all. Any instance of RI implies that \(x\) and \(y\) are absolutely distinct.