Word.ws English Dictionary

substitutivity

substitutivity noun: a logical relationship in which two terms can be mutually substituted without affecting the truth value of any propositions in which the terms occur, thereby establishing that the terms are identical.

Noun

substitutivity (uncountable)

  1. A logical relationship in which two terms can be mutually substituted without affecting the truth value of any propositions in which the terms occur, thereby establishing that the terms are identical.
    • One of the fundamental principles governing identity is that of substitutivity—or, as it might well be called, that of indiscernibility of identicals. It provides that, given a true statement of identity, one of its two terms may be substituted for the other in any true statement and the result...1943, Willard V. Quine, “Notes on Existence and Necessity”, in The Journal of Philosophy, volume 40, number 5, page 113

Origin of substitutivity

From substitutive + -ity.

Words formed from substitutivity

Questions about substitutivity

What does substitutivity mean?
Substitutivity means a logical relationship in which two terms can be mutually substituted without affecting the truth value of any propositions in which the terms occur, thereby establishing that the terms are identical.
What part of speech is substitutivity?
Substitutivity is a noun.

Words near substitutivity in the dictionary

  1. substitutionary atonements
  2. substitutions
  3. substitutive
  4. substitutive nomenclature
  5. substitutively
  6. substitutivity
  7. substitutor
  8. substitutors
  9. substochastic
  10. substoichiometric
  11. substoichiometrically

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: substitutivity (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “substitutivity.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/substitutivity. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.