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The problematics of identity Volume 91, issue 1, Janvier 2015

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EHESS, 105, boulevard Raspail, 75006 Paris, France
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The problematics of identity are born from a single word which now has two different meanings. From logician's sense, judgment of identity states that two signs designate the same object: to have an identity is to be identifiable as a unique individual. From the psychologist sense, the individual develops an identity by building a sense of himself and making his own values: this definition of self is necessarily variable and composite. Can we attribute these two uses of the word? To understand the contemporary language of identity, it is useful to return to the clinical notion of “identity crisis” as it was originally developed by the psychoanalyst Erik Erikson.