The criteria of Cermelli and Gurtin (2001, J. Mech. Phys. Solids) for choosing a geometric dislocation
tensor in finite plasticity are reconsidered. It is shown that physically reasonable alternate criteria could
just as well be put forward to select other measures; overall, the emphasis should be on the connections
between various physically meaningful measures as is customary in continuum mechanics and geometry,
rather than on criteria to select one or another specific measure. A more important question is how the
geometric dislocation tensor should enter a continuum theory and it is shown that the inclusion of the
dislocation density tensor in the specific free energy function in addition to the elastic distortion tensor is
not consistent with the free energy content of a body as predicated by classical dislocation theory. Even in
the case when the specific free energy function is meant to represent some spatial average of the actual
microscopic free energy content of the body, a dependence on the average dislocation density tensor
cannot be adequate.