Existence is Identity

Ayn Rand offers a new formulation of [the law of identity]: existence is identity. She does not say “existence has identity”—which might suggest that identity is a feature separable from existence (as a coat of paint is separable from the house that has it). The point is that to be is to be something. Existence and identity are indivisible; either implies the other. If something exists, then something exists; and if there is a something, then there is a something. The fundamental fact cannot be broken in two.¹