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Single Idea 8978

[filed under theme 7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / c. Reduction of events ]

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.

Gist of Idea

Events are made of other things, and are not fundamental to ontology

Source

Jonathan Bennett (Events and Their Names [1988], p.12), quoted by Peter Simons - Events 3.1

Book Ref

'The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics', ed/tr. Loux,M /Zimmerman,D [OUP 2005], p.369

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.

The 19 ideas with the same theme [explaining happenings in terms of another mode of existence]:

23211 Events are just interpretations of groups of appearances [Nietzsche]
8205 Explaining events just by bodies can't explain two events identical in space-time [Quine]
12670 A physical event is any change of distribution of energy [Ellis]
3747 Events are fast changes which are of interest to us [O'Connor]
8978 Events are made of other things, and are not fundamental to ontology [Bennett]
8278 The claim that events are individuated by their causal relations to other events is circular [Lowe on Davidson]
8976 If events are ordered triples of items, such things seem to be sets, and hence abstract [Simons on Kim]
8975 Events cannot be merely ordered triples, but must specify the link between the elements [Kim, by Simons]
8974 Events are composed of an object with an attribute at a time [Kim, by Simons]
8977 Since properties like self-identity and being 2+2=4 are timeless, Kim must restrict his properties [Simons on Kim]
8980 Kim's theory results in too many events [Simons on Kim]
10369 How fine-grained Kim's events are depends on how finely properties are individuated [Kim, by Schaffer,J]
4779 For Kim, events are exemplifications of properties by objects at particular times [Kim, by Psillos]
15257 The induction problem fades if you work with things, rather than with events [Harré/Madden]
15564 An event is a property of a unique space-time region [Lewis]
9413 An event is a change in or to an object [Lombard, by Mumford]
8518 Events are trope-sequences, in which tropes replace one another [Campbell,K]
4220 Maybe an event is the exemplification of a property at a time [Lowe]
4225 Events are changes in the properties of or relations between things [Lowe]