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Single Idea 12683

[filed under theme 7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 2. Processes ]

Full Idea

The category of natural kinds of objects or substances should be regarded simply as a subcategory of the category of the natural kinds of processes.

Gist of Idea

Objects and substances are a subcategory of the natural kinds of processes

Source

Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 3)

Book Ref

Ellis,Brian: 'The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism' [Acument 2009], p.68

A Reaction

This is a new, and interesting, proposal from Ellis (which will be ignored by the philosophical community, as all new theories coming from elderly philosophers are ignored! Cf Idea 12652). A good knowledge of physics is behind Ellis's claim.

Related Idea

Idea 12652 Concepts have two sides; they are files that face thought, and also face subject-matter [Fodor]

The 21 ideas with the same theme [accepting purposeful sequences of happenings as existents]:

13213 All comings-to-be are passings-away, and vice versa [Aristotle]
15768 An actuality is usually thought to be a process [Aristotle]
15389 In Whitehead 'processes' consist of events beginning and ending [Whitehead, by Simons]
11092 A river is a process, with stages; if we consider it as one thing, we are considering a process [Quine]
12683 Objects and substances are a subcategory of the natural kinds of processes [Ellis]
22626 Process philosophy insists that processes are not inferior in being to substances [Rescher]
16554 Activities have place, rate, duration, entities, properties, modes, direction, polarity, energy and range [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14760 Four-dimensionalism sees things and processes as belonging in the same category [Sider]
8979 Slow and continuous events (like balding or tree-growth) are called 'processes', not 'events' [Simons]
8981 Maybe processes behave like stuff-nouns, and events like count-nouns [Simons]
12836 Fans of process ontology cheat, since river-stages refer to 'rivers' [Simons]
12841 I don't believe in processes [Simons]
14947 Any process can be described as transfer of measurable information [Ladyman/Ross]
23784 Processes don't begin or end; they just change direction unexpectedly [Williams,NE]
23790 Processes are either strings of short unchanging states, or continuous and unreducible events [Williams,NE]
14562 A process is unified as an expression of a collection of causal powers [Mumford/Anjum]
19480 Process philosophy places the dynamic nature of being at the centre of our theories [Seibt]
19479 Reductionists identify processes by their 'owner', but tornadoes etc. are processes without owners [Seibt]
19481 Traditionally small things add up to processes, but quantum mechanics reverses this [Seibt]
20468 Quantum mechanics deals with processes, rather than with things [Rovelli]
22629 Basic processes are said to be either physical, or organic, or psychological [Ingthorsson]