Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Anaxarchus, Jonathan Bennett and Jos A. Benardete

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4 ideas

7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / a. Nature of events
8439 Maybe each event has only one possible causal history [Bennett]
     Full Idea: Perhaps it is impossible that an event should have had a causal history different from the one that it actually had.
     From: Jonathan Bennett (Event Causation: counterfactual analysis [1987], p.220)
     A reaction: [He cites van Inwagen for this] The idea is analagous to baptismal accounts of reference. Individuate an event by its history. It might depend (as Davidson implies) on how you describe the event.
8440 Maybe an event's time of occurrence is essential to it [Bennett]
     Full Idea: It has been argued that an event's time of occurrence is essential to it.
     From: Jonathan Bennett (Event Causation: counterfactual analysis [1987], p.221)
     A reaction: [He cites Lawrence Lombard] This sound initially implausible, particularly if a rival event happened, say, .1 of a second later than the actual event. It might depend on one's view about determinism. Interesting.
3310 If slowness is a property of walking rather than the walker, we must allow that events exist [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: Once we conceded that Tom can walk slowly or quickly, and that the slowness and quickness is a property of the walking and not of Tom, we can hardly refrain from quantifying over events (such as 'a walking') in our ontology.
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 6)
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / c. Reduction of events
8978 Events are made of other things, and are not fundamental to ontology [Bennett]
     Full Idea: Events are not basic items in the universe; they should not be included in any fundamental ontology...all the truths about them are entailed by and explained and made true by truths that do not involve the event concept.
     From: Jonathan Bennett (Events and Their Names [1988], p.12), quoted by Peter Simons - Events 3.1
     A reaction: Given the variable time spans of events, their ability to coincide, their ability to contain no motion, their blatantly conventional component, and their recalcitrance to individuation, I say Bennett is right.