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Full Idea
If we could show that intermittence could occur not only among artefacts and higher-order objects, but also among natural things, then we should have given it a secure place on the ontological map.
Gist of Idea
Intermittent objects would be respectable if they occurred in nature, as well as in artefacts
Source
Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 5.7)
Book Ref
Simons,Peter: 'Parts: a Study in Ontology' [OUP 1987], p.206
A Reaction
Interesting ontological test. Having identified fairly clear intermittent artefacts (Idea 12851), if we then fail to find any examples in nature, must we revisit the artefacts and say they are not intermittents? He suggests freezing an organ in surgery.
Related Idea
Idea 12851 Intermittence is seen in a toy fort, which is dismantled then rebuilt with the same bricks [Chisholm, by Simons]
| 12505 | One thing cannot have two beginnings of existence, nor two things one beginning [Locke] |
| 21302 | If a ruined church is rebuilt, its relation to its parish makes it the same church [Hume] |
| 12851 | Intermittence is seen in a toy fort, which is dismantled then rebuilt with the same bricks [Chisholm, by Simons] |
| 16499 | A restored church is the same 'church', but not the same 'building' or 'brickwork' [Wiggins] |
| 16515 | A thing begins only once; for a clock, it is when its making is first completed [Wiggins] |
| 17577 | When an electron 'leaps' to another orbit, is the new one the same electron? [Inwagen] |
| 12856 | Intermittent objects would be respectable if they occurred in nature, as well as in artefacts [Simons] |
| 12885 | Objects like chess games, with gaps in them, are thereby less unified [Simons] |