Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Events and Their Names', 'Conditionals' and 'Journals'

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4 ideas

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.

10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / c. Truth-function conditionals

14289	There are some assertable conditionals one would reject if one learned the antecedent [Jackson, by Edgington]
	Full Idea: Jackson came to realise that there are assertable conditionals which one would not continue to believe if one learned the antecedent, such as Lewis's "If Reagan worked for the KGB, I'll never find out".
	From: report of Frank Jackson (Conditionals [1987]) by Dorothy Edgington - Conditionals (Stanf) 4.2
	A reaction: That pesky David Lewis made trouble for everybody. Edgington agrees that his earlier formulation (Idea 14288) holds good for nearly all cases. There is a self-referential element in Lewis's example.

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 7. Later Matter Theories / b. Corpuscles

16707	Cold and hot are the swiftness and slowness of corpuscular motion [Beeckman]
	Full Idea: There is no doubt that the nature of cold and hot are taken from the swiftness and slowness of the motion of corpuscules.
	From: Isaac Beeckman (Journals [1617], I:132), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 19.6
	A reaction: This is so right it takes your breath away. For 'corpuscles' we should normally read 'molecules'. Atomism is a further refinement. This is the rejection of the orthodox view of separate qualities.

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).