Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Events and Their Names', 'Preface to 'De Revolutionibus'' and 'Process Philosophy'

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6 ideas

7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 2. Processes

19480	Process philosophy places the dynamic nature of being at the centre of our theories [Seibt]
	Full Idea: Process philosophy is based on the premise that being is dynamic and that the dynamic nature of being should be the primary focus of any comprehensive philosophical account of reality and our place within it.
	From: Johanna Seibt (Process Philosophy [2012], Intro)
	A reaction: Put like that, the chief ancestor of this approach would be Leibniz, even though his central idea concerns substances. Heraclitus is the most famous ancestor of Process Philosophy. Powers are dynamic, but powers of what?

19479	Reductionists identify processes by their 'owner', but tornadoes etc. are processes without owners [Seibt]
	Full Idea: On the reductionist view of processes, they are all 'owned' and we identify them by their owner (such as the murder of Caesar), ...but many processes (e.g. tornadoes, lightning bolts, the NY rush hour) lack a proper 'subject' altogether.
	From: Johanna Seibt (Process Philosophy [2012], 2)
	A reaction: This seems to be a fairly conclusive refutation of the view that processes are just objects changing their properties.

19481	Traditionally small things add up to processes, but quantum mechanics reverses this [Seibt]
	Full Idea: Instead of very small things (atoms) combining to produce standard processes (snowstorms), modern physics envisions very small processes (quantum phenomena) combining to produce standard things.
	From: Johanna Seibt (Process Philosophy [2012], 4 (i))
	A reaction: Though electrons seem to be distinct things with a fixed set of properties, so this is not a clear point. Where do fields come into it? Beware of citing quantum mechanics in metaphysics!

7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / c. Reduction of events

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.

14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / e. Lawlike explanations

15282	Facts should be deducible from the theory and initial conditions, and prefer the simpler theory [Osiander, by Harré/Madden]
	Full Idea: The two positivist criteria for a scientific theory are that the facts must be deducible from the theory together with initial conditions, and if there is more than one theory the simplest must be chosen.
	From: report of Andreas Osiander (Preface to 'De Revolutionibus' [1543]) by Harré,R./Madden,E.H. - Causal Powers 7.I
	A reaction: Harré and Madden cite this as a famous early statement of positivism. It seems to combine Hempel and Lewis very concisely. Wrong, of course. It does not, though, appear to mention 'laws'.

26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / b. Causal relata

10364	Facts are about the world, not in it, so they can't cause anything [Bennett]
	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.
	From: Jonathan Bennett (Events and Their Names [1988], p.22), quoted by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 1.1
	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).