display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
13 ideas
| 12838 | Four-dimensional ontology has no change, since that needs an object, and time to pass [Simons] |
| Full Idea: In the four-dimensional ontology there may be timeless variation, but there is no change. Change consists in an object having first one property and then another contrary one. But processes all have their properties timelessly. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: Possibly Simons is begging the question here. The phenomena which are traditionally labelled as 'change' are all nicely covered in the four-D account. Change is, we might say, subsumed in the shape of the space-time 'worm'. |
| 12842 | There are real relational changes, as well as bogus 'Cambridge changes' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: It is a mistake to call bogus Cambridge changes 'relational changes', since there are real relational changes, such as the changes in the relative positions and distances of several bodies. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure how you distinguish the two. If we swap seats, that is a real change. If everyone moves away from where I am sitting, is that real or Cambridge? If I notice, I might be upset, but suppose I don't notice? Nothing about me changes. |
| 12841 | I don't believe in processes [Simons] |
| Full Idea: I have been unable to see that there are processes. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 4.1 n4) | |
| A reaction: My problem here is that I am inclined to think of the mind as a process of the brain. The fact that a reductive account can be given of a process doesn't mean that we can deny there existence. Is there no such thing as decay, or erosion? |
| 12836 | Fans of process ontology cheat, since river-stages refer to 'rivers' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Proponents of process ontology (except perhaps Whitehead, who is obscure) indulge in double-talk with concrete examples. It is cheating to talk of 'cat-processes', or 'bathing in river-stages'. You can't change the subject and leave the predicate alone. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: It is one thing to admit processes into one's ontology, and another to have a 'process ontology', which presumably reduces objects to processes. I suppose the interest of continuant objects is precisely the aspect of them that is above any process. |
| 8979 | Slow and continuous events (like balding or tree-growth) are called 'processes', not 'events' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Some changes are slow and continuous and are called 'processes' rather than events; the growth of a tree or the greying of John's hair. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Events [2003], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: So making a loaf of bread is an event rather than a process, and World War I was a process rather than an event? If you slow down a dramatic event (on film), you see that it is really a process. I take 'process' to be a much more illuminating word. |
| 8981 | Maybe processes behave like stuff-nouns, and events like count-nouns [Simons] |
| Full Idea: There is arguably a parallel between the mass-count distinction among meanings of nouns and the process-event distinction among meanings of verbs. Processes, like stuff, do not connote criteria for counting, whereas events, like things, do. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Events [2003], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: Hm. You can have several processes, and a process can come to an end - but then you can have several ingredients of a cake, and you can run out of one of them. This may be quite a helpful distinction. |
| 12880 | Moments are things like smiles or skids, which are founded on other things [Simons] |
| Full Idea: A 'moment' is something which is founded on something else. Examples are legion: smiles, headaches, gestures, skids, collisions, fights, thought, all founded on their participants, the continuants involved in them. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 8.4) | |
| A reaction: The idea of a 'moment' and 'foundation' come from Husserl Log. Inv. 3. Simons says moments 'have a bright future in ontology'. It would be better if fewer of his examples involved human beings and their perceptions. |
| 12881 | A smiling is an event with causes, but the smile is a continuant without causes [Simons] |
| Full Idea: A smiling, being an event, has causes and effects, whereas the smile thereby produced is a continuant, and has itself neither causes nor effects. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 8.5) | |
| A reaction: This is dogmatic, hopeful and a bit dubious. Simons is very scathing about processes in ontology. There seem to be two descriptions, with distinctive syntax, but it is hard to believe that in reality we have two types of thing present. |
| 12882 | A wave is maintained by a process, but it isn't a process [Simons] |
| Full Idea: A wave is maintained by a process transferring motion from particle to particle of the medium, but it is not identical with this process. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 8.5) | |
| A reaction: I'm inclined to think of the mind as a process. There are some 'things' which only seem to exist if they have a duration. Bricks can be instantaneous, but minds and waves can't. A wave isn't a continuant. A hill isn't a wave. |
| 12883 | Moving disturbances are are moments which continuously change their basis [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Moving disturbances are a special and interesting kind of continuant: moments which continuously change their fundaments. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 8.5) | |
| A reaction: [a smile is a moment, and the face its fundament] I'm thinking he's got this wrong. Compare Idea 12882. Disturbances can't be continuants, because the passing of time is essential to them, but not to a continuant. |
| 12840 | I do not think there is a general identity condition for events [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Like Anscombe (1979) I do not think there is such a creature as a general identity condition for events. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 4.1 n1) | |
| A reaction: My working definition of an event is 'any part of a process which can be individuated'. This leaves you trying to define a process, and define individuate, and then to realise that individuation is not an objective matter. |
| 8973 | Einstein's relativity brought events into ontology, as the terms of a simultaneity relationships [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The ontology of events rose in philosophy with the rise of relativity theory in physics. Einstein postulated the relativity of simultaneity to an observer's state of motion. The terms of the relation of simultaneity must be events or their parts. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Events [2003], 1.1.2) | |
| A reaction: Intriguing. Philosophers no doubt think they are way ahead of physicists in such a metaphysical area. Personally I regard the parentage of the concept as good grounds for scepticism about it. See Idea 7621 for my reason. |
| 12839 | Relativity has an ontology of things and events, not on space-time diagrams [Simons] |
| Full Idea: A closer examination of the concepts and principles of relativity shows that they rest squarely on an ontology of things and events (not on convenient 'space-time diagrams'). Acceleration concerns non-zero mass, but only continuants can have a mass. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: The point here is that fans of four-dimensionalism like to claim that they are more in touch with modern physics, because 'time is just another dimension, like space, so objects are spread across it'. Simons sounds right about this. |