Events

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2005)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

events all seem to have something in common, metaphysically speaking, and some philosophers have inquired into what this common nature is. The main aim of a theory of events is to propose and defend an identity condition on events; that is, a condition under which two events are identical. For example, if Brutus kills Caesar by stabbing him, are there two events, the stabbing and the killing, or only one event? Each of the leading theories of events is surveyed in this article. According to Jaegwon Kim, events are basically property instantiations. In contrast, Donald Davidson attempts to individuate events by their causes and effects. However, Davidson eventually rejects this view and, together with W.V.O. Quine, individuates events with respect to their location in spacetime. According to David Lewis, an event is a property of a spatiotemporal region.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

  • This entry has no external links. Add one.
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Events.Frederick F. Schmitt - 1983 - Erkenntnis 20 (3):281 - 293.
Events and Event Talk: An Introduction.Fabio Pianesi & Achille C. Varzi - 2000 - In James Higginbotham, Fabio Pianesi & Achille C. Varzi (eds.), Speaking of Events. Oxford University Press. pp. 3–47.
The individuation of events.Nicholas Unwin - 1996 - Mind 105 (418):315-330.
Scaling up from atomic to complex events.Jeffrey M. Zacks - 2001 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24 (5):909-910.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
123 (#135,193)

6 months
1 (#1,027,696)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Susan Schneider
Florida Atlantic University

Citations of this work

Non‐Reductive Physicalism Cannot Appeal to Token Identity.Susan Schneider - 2011 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 85 (3):719-728.
Em Defesa do Necessitarismo Causal.Caio Cézar Silva dos Santos - 2023 - Dissertation, Universidade Federal Do Rio de Janeiro

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references