Processes Endure Whereas Events Occur
Abstract
In this essay, we aim to help clarify the nature of so-called 'occurrences' by attributing distinct modes of existence and persistence to processes and events. In doing so, we break with the perdurantism claimed by DOLCE’s authors and we distance ourselves from mereological analyzes like those recently conducted by Guarino to distinguish between 'processes' and 'episodes'. In line with the works of Stout and Galton, we first bring closer (physical) processes and objects in their way of enduring by proposing for processes a notion of dynamic presence (contrasting with a static presence for objects). Then, on the events side, we attribute to them the status of abstract entities by identifying them with objects of thought (by individual and collective subjects), and this allows us to distinguish for themselves between existence and occurrence. We therefore identify them with psychological (or even social) endurants, which may contingently occur.
Highlights
- traditionally, the event is conceived as a concrete particular
- authors attribute to events the status of abstract entity by assimilating them to mental entities, even social entities
- the merit of such a conception is to distinguish between two too often confused notions that are the existence and the occurrence (in the sense of realization) of events
Basic Commitments
- aim is to establish categories and notions that reflect the way in which we conceive the world
- in this, we join the orientation also retained by the authors of DOLCE. However, we will see later (Section 4) that the need to assign properties to 'non existant' entities will lead us, beyond a simple 'cognitive bias', to opt for an intentional ontology (or intensional by reference to intensional semantics).
- adopting a contemporary perspective of ontology, we retain as the main mode of structuring the world three types of reality: physical, mental and social
- This division of reality is based on the recognition of distinct modes of existence.
- t.2024.07.22.22 modalities seems to imply one or the other, but in principle you can have existentially multi-modal entities, like loc.fr.shadow-keep (Private) which has mental, social, and electronic/representational modes; more like mixins
- invites us to track the border between facts and interpretation
- According to Galton, this distinction corresponds to two perspectives of description of the world.
- authors propose to see an opposition between the physical world and the mental and social worlds and, more precisely, to position events conceived as historical entities in the mental and social worlds
- i.e., interpretation
- " the history of the world consists of how the world evolves over time; to appreciate changes, or on the contrary stabilities, requires the memory of observers; events are therefore psychological and social constructs."
- t.2024.07.23.11 or digital
3. Our ontological framework (in a nutshell)
- artifacts are physical objects endowed with a social life
- examples of physical processes are: the movement of a physical object (leading to the displacement or rotation of the object on itself); the growth in size of a physical body; the life process of a person; the ripening of a fruit; oxidation of a ferrous metal object; the melting of a glacier.
- the cause is part of the process, which process is the ‘engine’ of change
- the change of a process can not itself be explained by a process, unless we create an infinite conceptual regression
- a process is not a continuant floating in the air, but is 'anchored' in a support object which enacts it, aka behavior