8978
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Events are made of other things, and are not fundamental to ontology [Bennett]
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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.
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From:
Jonathan Bennett (Events and Their Names [1988], p.12), quoted by Peter Simons - Events 3.1
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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.
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8912
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Nowadays abstractions are defined as non-spatial, causally inert things [Rosen]
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Full Idea:
If any characterization of the abstract deserves to be regarded as the modern standard one, it is this: an abstract entity is a non-spatial (or non-spatiotemporal) causally inert thing. This view presents a number of perplexities...
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From:
Gideon Rosen (Abstract Objects [2001], 'Non-spat')
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A reaction:
As indicated in other ideas, the problem is that some abstractions do seem to be located somewhere in space-time, and to have come into existence, and to pass away. I like 'to exist is to have causal powers'. See Ideas 5992 and 8300.
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8918
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Functional terms can pick out abstractions by asserting an equivalence relation [Rosen]
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Full Idea:
On Frege's suggestion, functional terms that pick out abstract expressions (such as 'direction' or 'equinumeral') have a typical form of f(a) = f(b) iff aRb, where R is an equivalence relation, a relation which is reflexive, symmetric and transitive.
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From:
Gideon Rosen (Abstract Objects [2001], 'Way of Abs')
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A reaction:
[Wright and Hale are credited with the details] This has become the modern orthodoxy among the logically-minded. Examples of R are 'parallel' or 'just as many as'. It picks out an 'aspect', which isn't far from the old view.
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8919
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Abstraction by equivalence relationships might prove that a train is an abstract entity [Rosen]
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Full Idea:
It seems possible to define a train in terms of its carriages and the connection relationship, which would meet the equivalence account of abstraction, but demonstrate that trains are actually abstract.
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From:
Gideon Rosen (Abstract Objects [2001], 'Way of Abs')
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A reaction:
[Compressed. See article for more detail] A tricky example, but a suggestive line of criticism. If you find two physical objects which relate to one another reflexively, symmetrically and transitively, they may turn out to be abstract.
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18671
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The ground for an attitude is not a thing's 'goodness', but its concrete characteristics [Ewing]
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Full Idea:
The ground for an attitude lies not in some other ethical concept, goodness, but in the concrete, factual characteristics of what we pronounce good. ...We shall not be better off if we interpolate an indefinable characteristic of goodness besides.
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From:
A.C. Ewing (The Definition of Good [1948], p.172), quoted by Francesco Orsi - Value Theory 1.4
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A reaction:
This is a forerunner of Scanlon's Buck-Passing theory of the source of value (in other properties). I approve of this approach. If I say 'actually this very strong cheese is really good', I'm not adding goodness to the cheese.
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10364
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Facts are about the world, not in it, so they can't cause anything [Bennett]
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Full Idea:
Facts are not the sort of item that can cause anything. A fact is a true proposition (they say); it is not something in the world but is rather something about the world.
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From:
Jonathan Bennett (Events and Their Names [1988], p.22), quoted by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 1.1
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A reaction:
Compare 10361. Good argument, but maybe 'fact' is ambiguous. See Idea 10365. Events are said to be more concrete, and so can do the job, but their individuation also seems to depend on a description (as Davidson has pointed out).
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