Full Idea
Under certain conditions a clay statue is identical with the piece of clay of which it is made, and if this is so then the identity is contingent.
Gist of Idea
If a statue is identical with the clay of which it is made, that identity is contingent
Source
Allan Gibbard (Contingent Identity [1975], Intro)
Book Reference
-: 'Journal of Symbolic Logic' [-], p.187
A Reaction
This initiated the modern debate about statues, and it is an attack on Kripke's claim that if two things are identical, then they are necessarily identical. Kripke seems right about Hesperus and Phosphorus, but not about the statue.