display all the ideas for this combination of texts
2 ideas
| 12503 | Identity means that the idea of a thing remains the same over time [Locke] |
| Full Idea: In this consists identity, when the ideas a thing is attributed to vary not at all from what they were at that moment, wherein we consider their former existence, and to which we compare the present. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 2.24.01) | |
| A reaction: Since we recognise that we might, in odd circumstances, have the identical idea while the object has been swapped, this is wrong. It sounds like the identity of indiscernibles. Identity is a concept applied to reality, not to ideas. |
| 12505 | One thing cannot have two beginnings of existence, nor two things one beginning [Locke] |
| Full Idea: One thing cannot have two beginnings of existence, nor two things one beginning. …That therefore that had one beginning is the same thing, and that which had a different beginning in time and place from that, is not the same but divers. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 2.27.01) | |
| A reaction: Chris Hughes has a nice example of a bicycle which is dismantled, parts are swapped with another, then the originals collected up and reassembled, which appears to give the bike two beginnings. This is necessity of origin, not essentiality. |