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Full Idea
A thing starts existing only once; and in the case of a clock its proper beginning was at about the time when its maker finished it.
Gist of Idea
A thing begins only once; for a clock, it is when its making is first completed
Source
David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.3)
Book Ref
Wiggins,David: 'Sameness and Substance' [Blackwell 1980], p.91
A Reaction
I love the example that challenges this. Take the clock's parts and use them to make other clocks, then collect them up and reassemble the first clock. If the first clock has persisted through this, you have too many clocks. Wiggins spots some of this.
| 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] |