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DOI
10.4324/9780415249126-N019-1
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DOI: 10.4324/9780415249126-N019-1
Version: v1,  Published online: 1998
Retrieved March 29, 2024, from https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/events/v-1

Article Summary

Events are entities like collisions and speeches, as opposed to things like planets and people. Many are changes, for example things being first hot and then cold. All lack a thing’s full identity over time: either they are instantaneous, or they have temporal parts, like a speech’s words, which stop them being wholly present at an instant; whereas things, which lack temporal parts, are wholly present throughout their lives.

Events may be identified with two types of entity: facts, like the fact that David Hume dies, corresponding to truths like ‘Hume dies’; or particulars which, like things, correspond to names, for example ‘Hume’s death’. Which one they are taken to be affects the content of many metaphysical theories: such as that all particulars are things; that times, or causes and effects, or actions, are events; or that mental events are physical.

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    Citing this article:
    Mellor, D.H.. Events, 1998, doi:10.4324/9780415249126-N019-1. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Taylor and Francis, https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/events/v-1.
    Copyright © 1998-2024 Routledge.

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