5 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. |
19216 | Propositions (such as 'that dog is barking') only exist if their items exist [Williamson] |
Full Idea: A proposition about an item exists only if that item exists... how could something be the proposition that that dog is barking in circumstances in which that dog does not exist? | |
From: Timothy Williamson (Necessary Existents [2002], p.240), quoted by Trenton Merricks - Propositions | |
A reaction: This is a view of propositions I can't make sense of. If I'm under an illusion that there is a dog barking nearby, when there isn't one, can I not say 'that dog is barking'? If I haven't expressed a proposition, what have I done? |
7453 | Galen's medicine followed the mean; each illness was balanced by opposite treatment [Galen, by Hacking] |
Full Idea: Galen ran medicine on the principle of the mean; afflictions must be treated by contraries; hot diseases deserve cold medicine and moist illnesses want drying agents. (Paracelsus rebelled, treating through similarity). | |
From: report of Galen (On Medical Experience [c.169]) by Ian Hacking - The Emergence of Probability Ch.5 | |
A reaction: This must be inherited from Aristotle, with the aim of virtue for the body, as Aristotle wanted virtue for the psuché. In some areas Galen is probably right, that natural balance is the aim, as in bodily temperature control. |