Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Event: A change of state. The event itself has no duration, otherwise the beginning and the end of the event would have to have their own duration or the beginning and the end of an event in turn would be independent events. See also regress, process, flux, change, states._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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P. Simons on Events - Dictionary of Arguments
I 129 Event/occurrents/Simons: events or processes are like continuants in time, but with temporal parts. No identity conditions can be specified. Continuants cannot be eliminated. Brutus-events cannot be seperated into individual events without reference to Brutus. I 131 Event/part/mereology/Simons: spatially and temporally extended events may have parts that are neither purely temporal nor purely spatial, e.g. the part of the football match which is attributable to a single player. Range/span/spn(e): a range or span is a spatiotemporal localization. "Being in": means within larger regions. "Covering": means covering exactly the part. Def spread/spr[e]: a spread is an exact space. Def spell/sp[e]: spell refers to an exact time. Atomic: if pan and spread = 0. Connected: two events are connected, if their span (consisting of span and spell) are topologically connected. Def temporal part: the temporal part contains all simultaneously occurring parts of the event (analog spatial part). Def phase: a phase has temporally related part. Def disc: a disc is a phase with duration 0. Def segment: a segment is a spatially related spatial part. Def section: a section is a segment with expansion 0. I 134 Sum/event/mereology/Simon: for sums of events, it is different than for sums of objects: if events are causally isolated, they cannot form a sum. However, they can be part of a wider whole (they may have an upper limit). Events do not satisfy the full mereology, but the weaker axioms. I 182 Product/events/Simons: problem: the products can exist interrupted. E.g. two objects could alternate between overlapping and separateness, e.g. light spots on a screen, e.g. two bodies share at a time certain members, at others times not. Problem: in the latter case the same product may arise again, but with other elements. >Interrupted Existence. I 183 The change of products requires topological terms. I 182 Coincidence/events: the lack of extensionality allows only one proof of coincidence instead of uniqueness. I 281 Event/reduction/reductionism/Forbes/Simons: events are open to a reduction in such a way as continuants are not, therefore, it is questionable whether there are irreducible truths de re about events ((s) that cannot be traced back to anything else). Essentialism: but as events are also real objects, there should also be essential truth about them. Problem: they are specified by descriptions. Simons: thesis: pro essentialism for events: e.g. the assassination of Franz Ferdinand by principle contains both essentially. E.g. bomb instead of firearm: is a different murder but not with swapped bullets. I 282 It is essential for an event that it is exactly part of those events, of which it is part at this point of time. Different: four-dimensionalism: it does not obey the essentialism. I 305 Event/continuants/Simons: event a: here a formula like "a < b" is complete. Continuants: here we need additionally a time index (with quantification): "ž(Et)[a |
Simons I P. Simons Parts. A Study in Ontology Oxford New York 1987 |
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Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2024-04-24