more from this thinker     |     more from this text

Single Idea 8981

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

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.

Gist of Idea

Maybe processes behave like stuff-nouns, and events like count-nouns

Source

Peter Simons (Events [2003], 6.2)

Book Ref

'The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics', ed/tr. Loux,M /Zimmerman,D [OUP 2005], p.380

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.

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]