7 ideas
| 8979 | Slow and continuous events (like balding or tree-growth) are called 'processes', not 'events' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Some changes are slow and continuous and are called 'processes' rather than events; the growth of a tree or the greying of John's hair. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Events [2003], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: So making a loaf of bread is an event rather than a process, and World War I was a process rather than an event? If you slow down a dramatic event (on film), you see that it is really a process. I take 'process' to be a much more illuminating word. |
| 8981 | Maybe processes behave like stuff-nouns, and events like count-nouns [Simons] |
| 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. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Events [2003], 6.2) | |
| 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. |
| 8973 | Einstein's relativity brought events into ontology, as the terms of a simultaneity relationships [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The ontology of events rose in philosophy with the rise of relativity theory in physics. Einstein postulated the relativity of simultaneity to an observer's state of motion. The terms of the relation of simultaneity must be events or their parts. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Events [2003], 1.1.2) | |
| A reaction: Intriguing. Philosophers no doubt think they are way ahead of physicists in such a metaphysical area. Personally I regard the parentage of the concept as good grounds for scepticism about it. See Idea 7621 for my reason. |
| 14617 | Predicates can't apply to what doesn't exist [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Nothing can be predicated of something which does not exist. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Merely Possible Propositions [2010], p.28) | |
| A reaction: [He says he is 'agreeing with Plantinga' on this] This seems very puzzling, as you can obviously say that dragons do not exist, but they breathe fire. Why can't you attach predicates to hypothetical objects? |
| 14616 | A 'Russellian proposition' is an ordered sequence of individual, properties and relations [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: A 'Russellian proposition' is an ordered sequence containing the individual, along with properties and relations. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Merely Possible Propositions [2010], p.22) | |
| A reaction: Since Russell took properties and relations to be features of reality, this made the whole proposition a feature of reality. This is utterly different from what I understand by the word 'proposition', which is a feature of thought, not of the world. |
| 13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
| Full Idea: In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes. | |
| From: Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 078 | |
| A reaction: These remarks endorsing the infinite superiority of the educated to the uneducated seem to have been popular in late antiquity. It tends to be the religions which discourage great learning, especially in their emphasis on a single book. |
| 20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |
| Full Idea: Posidonius defined time thus: it is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed and slowness. | |
| From: report of Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42 | |
| A reaction: Hm. Can we define motion or speed without alluding to time? Looks like we have to define them as a conjoined pair, which means we cannot fully understand either of them. |