display all the ideas for this combination of texts
4 ideas
| 23783 | Change exists, it is causal, and it needs an explanation [Williams,NE] |
| Full Idea: There is a phenomenon of change. I am starting with the assumptions that it is a causal phenomenon, and that it requires explanation. | |
| From: Neil E. Williams (The Powers Metaphysics [2019], 06.1) | |
| A reaction: That is, I take it, that we need a theory which explains change, rather than just describing it. Well said. Williams says, roughly, that each stage causes the next stage. |
| 23784 | Processes don't begin or end; they just change direction unexpectedly [Williams,NE] |
| Full Idea: No process every really starts or ends. …A process we see as derailed is really just an expected sequence that continues in an unexpected direction. | |
| From: Neil E. Williams (The Powers Metaphysics [2019], 06.3) | |
| A reaction: Obviously if you cannot individuate processes, then the concept of a process is not much use in ontology. Williams rejects processes, and I think he is probably right. He breaks processes down into smaller units. |
| 23790 | Processes are either strings of short unchanging states, or continuous and unreducible events [Williams,NE] |
| Full Idea: Processes can be modelled in two ways. They are drawn out events encompassing many changes, but dissectible into short-lived states, none including change. Or they are continuous and impenetrable, and to split them is impossible. | |
| From: Neil E. Williams (The Powers Metaphysics [2019], 09.3) | |
| A reaction: Obviously a process has temporal moments in it, so the unsplittability is conceptual. I find the concept of changeless parts baffling. But if processes are drawn out, they can't be basic to ontology. |
| 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. |