Event (philosophy)

Last updated

In philosophy, events are objects in time or instantiations of properties in objects. On some views, only changes in the form of acquiring or losing a property can constitute events, like the lawn's becoming dry. [1] According to others, there are also events that involve nothing but the retaining of a property, e.g. the lawn's staying wet. [1] [2] Events are usually defined as particulars that, unlike universals, cannot repeat at different times. [2] Processes are complex events constituted by a sequence of events. [3] But even simple events can be conceived as complex entities involving an object, a time and the property exemplified by the object at this time. [4] [5] Traditionally, metaphysicians tended to emphasize static being over dynamic events. This tendency has been opposed by so-called process philosophy or process ontology, which ascribes ontological primacy to events and processes. [6] [7]

Contents

Kim’s property-exemplification

Jaegwon Kim theorized that events are structured.
They are composed of three things:

  1. object(s) ,
  2. a property and
  3. time or a temporal interval .

Events are defined using the operation .
A unique event is defined by two principles:

a) the existence condition and
b) the identity condition.

The existence condition states “ exists if and only if object exemplifies the -adic at time .” This means a unique event exists if the above is met. The identity condition states “ is if and only if , and .”

Kim uses these to define events under five conditions:

  1. One, they are unrepeatable, unchangeable particulars that include changes and the states and conditions of that event.
  2. Two, they have a semi-temporal location.
  3. Three, only their constructive property creates distinct events.
  4. Four, holding a constructive property as a generic event creates a type-token relationship between events, and events are not limited to their three requirements (i.e. ). Critics of this theory such as Myles Brand have suggested that the theory be modified so that an event had a spatiotemporal region; consider the event of a flash of lightning. The idea is that an event must include both the span of time of the flash of lightning and the area in which it occurred.


Other problems exist within Kim's theory, as he never specified what properties were (e.g. universals, tropes, natural classes, etc.). In addition, it is not specified if properties are few or abundant. The following is Kim's response to the above.

. . . [T]he basic generic events may be best picked out relative to a scientific theory, whether the theory is a common-sense theory of the behavior of middle-sized objects or a highly sophisticated physical theory. They are among the important properties, relative to the theory, in terms of which lawful regularities can be discovered, described, and explained. The basic parameters in terms of which the laws of the theory are formulated would, on this view, give us our basic generic events, and the usual logical, mathematical, and perhaps other types of operations on them would yield complex, defined generic events. We commonly recognize such properties as motion, colors, temperatures, weights, pushing, and breaking, as generic events and states, but we must view this against the background of our common-sense explanatory and predictive scheme of the world around us. I think it highly likely that we cannot pick out generic events completely a priori. [8]

There is also a major debate about the essentiality of a constitutive object. There are two major questions involved in this: If one event occurs, could it have occurred in the same manner if it were another person, and could it occur in the same manner if it would have occurred at a different time? Kim holds that neither are true and that different conditions (i.e. a different person or time) would lead to a separate event. However, some consider it natural to assume the opposite.

Davidson

Donald Davidson and John Lemmon proposed a theory of events that had two major conditions, respectively: a causal criterion and a spatiotemporal criterion.

The causal criterion defines an event as two events being the same if and only if they have the same cause and effect.

The spatiotemporal criterion defines an event as two events being the same if and only if they occur in the same space at the same time. Davidson however provided this scenario; if a metal ball becomes warmer during a certain minute, and during the same minute rotates through 35 degrees, must we say that these are the same event? However, one can argue that the warming of the ball and the rotation are possibly temporally separated and are therefore separate events.

Lewis

David Lewis theorized that events are merely spatiotemporal regions and properties (i.e. membership of a class). He defines an event as “e is an event only if it is a class of spatiotemporal regions, both thisworldly (assuming it occurs in the actual world) and otherworldly.” The only problem with this definition is it only tells us what an event could be, but does not define a unique event. This theory entails modal realism, which assumes possible worlds exist; worlds are defined as sets containing all objects that exist as a part of that set. However, this theory is controversial. Some philosophers have attempted to remove possible worlds, and reduce them to other entities. They hold that the world we exist in is the only world that actually exists, and that possible worlds are only possibilities.

Lewis’ theory is composed of four key points. Firstly, the non-duplication principle; it states that x and y are separate events if and only if there is one member of x that is not a member of y (or vice versa). Secondly, there exist regions that are subsets of possible worlds and thirdly, events are not structured by an essential time.

Badiou

In Being and Event, Alain Badiou writes that the event (événement) is a multiple which basically does not make sense according to the rules of the "situation," in other words existence. Hence, the event "is not," and therefore, in order for there to be an event, there must be an "intervention" which changes the rules of the situation in order to allow that particular event to be ("to be" meaning to be a multiple which belongs to the multiple of the situation — these terms are drawn from or defined in reference to set theory). In his view, there is no "one," and everything that is is a "multiple." "One" happens when the situation "counts," or accounts for, acknowledges, or defines something: it "counts it as one." For the event to be counted as one by the situation, or counted in the one of the situation, an intervention needs to decide its belonging to the situation. This is because his definition of the event violates the prohibition against self-belonging (in other words, it is a set-theoretical definition which violates set theory's rules of consistency), thus does not count as extant on its own. [9]

Deleuze

Gilles Deleuze lectured on the concept of event on March 10, 1987. A sense of the lecture is described by James Williams. [10] Williams also wrote, "From the point of view of the difference between two possible worlds, the event is all important". [11] He also stated, "Every event is revolutionary due to an integration of signs, acts and structures through the whole event. Events are distinguished by the intensity of this revolution, rather than the types of freedom or chance." [12] In 1988 Deleuze published a magazine article "Signes et événements" [13]

In his book Nietszche and Philosophy, he addresses the question "Which one is beautiful?" In the preface to the English translation he wrote:

The one that ... does not refer to an individual, to a person, but rather to an event, that is, to the forces in their various relationships to a proposition or phenomenon, and the genetic relationship that determines these forces (power). [14]

Kirkeby

The Danish philosopher Ole Fogh Kirkeby deserves mentioning, as he has written a comprehensive trilogy about the event, or in Danish "begivenheden". In the first work of the trilogy "Eventum tantum – begivenhedens ethos" [15] (Eventum tantum - the ethos of the event) he distinguishes between three levels of the event, inspired from Nicholas of Cusa: Eventum tantum as non aliud, the alma-event and the proto-event.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Existence</span> State of being real

Existence is the state of being real or participating in reality. It can refer both to individual entities and the world as a whole. The terms "being", "reality", and "actuality" are often used as close synonyms. Existence contrasts with nonexistence, nothingness, and nonbeing. A common distinction is between the existence of an entity and its essence, which refers to the entity's nature or essential qualities.

First-order logic—also known as predicate logic, quantificational logic, and first-order predicate calculus—is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quantified variables over non-logical objects, and allows the use of sentences that contain variables, so that rather than propositions such as "Socrates is a man", one can have expressions in the form "there exists x such that x is Socrates and x is a man", where "there exists" is a quantifier, while x is a variable. This distinguishes it from propositional logic, which does not use quantifiers or relations; in this sense, propositional logic is the foundation of first-order logic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gilles Deleuze</span> French philosopher (1925–1995)

Gilles Louis René Deleuze was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus (1980), both co-written with psychoanalyst Félix Guattari. His metaphysical treatise Difference and Repetition (1968) is considered by many scholars to be his magnum opus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metaphysics</span> Branch of philosophy dealing with reality

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality. This includes the first principles of: being or existence, identity, change, space and time, cause and effect, necessity, actuality, and possibility.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ontology</span> Philosophical study of being and existence

In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being. It investigates what types of entities exist, how they are grouped into categories, and how they are related to one another on the most fundamental level. Ontologists often try to determine what the categories or highest kinds are and how they form a system of categories that encompasses the classification of all entities. Commonly proposed categories include substances, properties, relations, states of affairs, and events. These categories are characterized by fundamental ontological concepts, including particularity and universality, abstractness and concreteness, or possibility and necessity. Of special interest is the concept of ontological dependence, which determines whether the entities of a category exist on the most fundamental level. Disagreements within ontology are often about whether entities belonging to a certain category exist and, if so, how they are related to other entities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Probability theory</span> Branch of mathematics concerning probability

Probability theory or probability calculus is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expressing it through a set of axioms. Typically these axioms formalise probability in terms of a probability space, which assigns a measure taking values between 0 and 1, termed the probability measure, to a set of outcomes called the sample space. Any specified subset of the sample space is called an event.

Substance theory, or substance–attribute theory, is an ontological theory positing that objects are constituted each by a substance and properties borne by the substance but distinct from it. In this role, a substance can be referred to as a substratum or a thing-in-itself. Substances are particulars that are ontologically independent: they are able to exist all by themselves. Another defining feature often attributed to substances is their ability to undergo changes. Changes involve something existing before, during and after the change. They can be described in terms of a persisting substance gaining or losing properties. Attributes or properties, on the other hand, are entities that can be exemplified by substances. Properties characterize their bearers; they express what their bearer is like.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Universal property</span> Characterizing property of mathematical constructions

In mathematics, more specifically in category theory, a universal property is a property that characterizes up to an isomorphism the result of some constructions. Thus, universal properties can be used for defining some objects independently from the method chosen for constructing them. For example, the definitions of the integers from the natural numbers, of the rational numbers from the integers, of the real numbers from the rational numbers, and of polynomial rings from the field of their coefficients can all be done in terms of universal properties. In particular, the concept of universal property allows a simple proof that all constructions of real numbers are equivalent: it suffices to prove that they satisfy the same universal property.

Causality (also called causation, or cause and effect) is influence by which one event, process, state, or object (acause) contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object (an effect) where the cause is partly responsible for the effect, and the effect is partly dependent on the cause. In general, a process has many causes, which are also said to be causal factors for it, and all lie in its past. An effect can in turn be a cause of, or causal factor for, many other effects, which all lie in its future. Some writers have held that causality is metaphysically prior to notions of time and space.

The distinction between subject and object is a basic idea of philosophy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saul Kripke</span> American philosopher and logician (1940–2022)

Saul Aaron Kripke was an American analytic philosopher and logician. He was Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and emeritus professor at Princeton University. Kripke is considered one of the most important philosophers of the latter half of the 20th century. Since the 1960s, he has been a central figure in a number of fields related to mathematical and modal logic, philosophy of language and mathematics, metaphysics, epistemology, and recursion theory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sorites paradox</span> Logical paradox from vague predicates

The sorites paradox is a paradox that results from vague predicates. A typical formulation involves a heap of sand, from which grains are removed individually. With the assumption that removing a single grain does not cause a heap to become a non-heap, the paradox is to consider what happens when the process is repeated enough times that only one grain remains: is it still a heap? If not, when did it change from a heap to a non-heap?

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Supervenience</span> Relation between sets of properties or facts

In philosophy, supervenience refers to a relation between sets of properties or sets of facts. X is said to supervene on Y if and only if some difference in Y is necessary for any difference in X to be possible.

Emergentism is the belief in emergence, particularly as it involves consciousness and the philosophy of mind. A property of a system is said to be emergent if it is a new outcome of some other properties of the system and their interaction, while it is itself different from them. Within the philosophy of science, emergentism is analyzed both as it contrasts with and parallels reductionism.

A free logic is a logic with fewer existential presuppositions than classical logic. Free logics may allow for terms that do not denote any object. Free logics may also allow models that have an empty domain. A free logic with the latter property is an inclusive logic.

Jaegwon Kim was a Korean-American philosopher. At the time of his death, Kim was an emeritus professor of philosophy at Brown University. He also taught at several other leading American universities during his lifetime, including the University of Michigan, Cornell University, the University of Notre Dame, Johns Hopkins University, and Swarthmore College. He is best known for his work on mental causation, the mind-body problem and the metaphysics of supervenience and events. Key themes in his work include: a rejection of Cartesian metaphysics, the limitations of strict psychophysical identity, supervenience, and the individuation of events. Kim's work on these and other contemporary metaphysical and epistemological issues is well represented by the papers collected in Supervenience and Mind: Selected Philosophical Essays (1993).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haecceity</span>

Haecceity is a term from medieval scholastic philosophy, first coined by followers of Duns Scotus to denote a concept that he seems to have originated: the irreducible determination of a thing that makes it this particular thing. Haecceity is a person's or object's thisness, the individualising difference between the concept "a man" and the concept "Socrates". In modern philosophy of physics, it is sometimes referred to as primitive thisness.

Physical causal closure is a metaphysical theory about the nature of causation in the physical realm with significant ramifications in the study of metaphysics and the mind. In a strongly stated version, physical causal closure says that "all physical states have pure physical causes" — Jaegwon Kim, or that "physical effects have only physical causes" — Agustin Vincente, p. 150.

Anomalous monism is a philosophical thesis about the mind–body relationship. It was first proposed by Donald Davidson in his 1970 paper "Mental Events". The theory is twofold and states that mental events are identical with physical events, and that the mental is anomalous, i.e. under their mental descriptions, relationships between these mental events are not describable by strict physical laws. Hence, Davidson proposes an identity theory of mind without the reductive bridge laws associated with the type-identity theory. Since the publication of his paper, Davidson refined his thesis and both critics and supporters of anomalous monism have come up with their own characterizations of the thesis, many of which appear to differ from Davidson's.

In philosophy, specifically in the area of metaphysics, counterpart theory is an alternative to standard (Kripkean) possible-worlds semantics for interpreting quantified modal logic. Counterpart theory still presupposes possible worlds, but differs in certain important respects from the Kripkean view. The form of the theory most commonly cited was developed by David Lewis, first in a paper and later in his book On the Plurality of Worlds.

References

  1. 1 2 Honderich, Ted (2005). "events". The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford University Press.
  2. 1 2 Kim, Jaegwon; Sosa, Ernest; Rosenkrantz, Gary S. (1994). "event theory". A Companion to Metaphysics. Wiley-Blackwell.
  3. ↑ Craig, Edward (1996). "processes". Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Routledge.
  4. ↑ Audi, Robert (1999). "event". The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. Cambridge University Press.
  5. ↑ Schneider, Susan. "Events". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  6. ↑ Seibt, Johanna (2020). "Process Philosophy". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Retrieved 9 January 2021.
  7. ↑ Hustwit, J. R. "Process Philosophy". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 9 January 2021.
  8. ↑ Jaegwon Kim (1993) Supervenience and Mind, page 37, Cambridge University Press
  9. ↑ Alain Badiou (1988) L'Être et l'Événement
  10. ↑ Charles J. Stivale (editor) (2011) Gilles Deleuze: Key Concepts, 2nd edition, chapter 6: Event, pp 80–90
  11. ↑ James Williams (2003) Gilles Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition: A Critical Introduction and Guide, page 72, Edinburgh University Press
  12. ↑ Williams, James (2013). Gilles Deleuze's Difference and Repetition: A Critical Introduction and Guide (2nd ed.). University of Edinburgh. pp. xi. ISBN   9780748668816.
  13. ↑ Gilles Deleuze (1988) "Signes et événements", Magazine Littéraire, #257, pages 16 to 25
  14. ↑ Michael Hart (1993) Gilles Deleuze: An apprenticeship in philosophy, page 31, University of Minnesota Press ISBN   0-8166-2160-8
  15. ↑ Ole Fogh Kirkeby (2005) Eventum tantum : Begivenhedens ethos. København: Samfundslitteratur
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.