2. What Mephisto is getting at here is that complexes confer mutual consistency upon the (classically) irreconcilable theses (A-C):

 (A) "a = b" and "a = a" assert different things about a.
 (B) "a" signifies a and "b" signifies b.
 (C) a = b

3. D. Lewis, "General Semantics," in Semantics of Natural Language, D. Davidson (ed.), D. Reidel, Dordrecht, 1972, p. 180.

4. "[...] if a = b predicates the relation of identity between the referent of 'a' and the referent of 'b', then if a = b is true, this sentence predicates the same relation between the same pair of objects as a = a. The sentences therefore have the same truth and reference conditions." (Engel [1991], p. 161)

5. But what has happened to Sense?  Is Thomas on his way to becoming a direct referentialist?

6. The author invites your confidential response to the following Infernal Quiz in the Sociology of Knowledge:

Question: To what might one attribute Thomas' attitude towards Mephisto?

       __ Mephisto is pigeon-toed.
       __ Mephisto spit in Thomas's ear.
       __ Mephisto is known not to referee.
       __ Mephisto didn't say scope, sense, designation, or model.
       __ Thomas has Influential Friends in High Places.
       __ Thomas doesn't brake for Logical Aliens.
       __ Thomas is into E & R (Exegesis and Rehash).
       __ Thomas knows that logic and semantics are ontology-free.
       __ Other (please specify)

7. Will Mephisto pay for Thomas's Sinn?  Or will Mephisto give Thomas no quarter?  See "The Paradox of Identity".