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According to Davidson, a sentence like Brutus stabbed Caesar can be represented as ∃e.stab(Brutus,Caesar), where e is a reified event. Is there a term for something that's not an event? I first thought of "entity" or "individual" but both terms are used in some ontologies for everything including events.

Atamiri
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  • Can you add an example of a non-event as a sentance? – Cort Ammon Mar 13 '15 at 21:12
  • No, there are no such sentences. "Non-events" are, in the example above, Brutus and Caesar. – Atamiri Mar 13 '15 at 21:17
  • Question, is "Brutus did not stab Caesar" an event? Is "Brutus shot Caesar" an event? By this logic everything that *didn't* happen is an event. It's hard to see what they mean. Is "user4894 solved the Riemann hypothesis" an event? It's false today but it has the (at least theoretical) potential to be true in the future. At all times it has a definite truth value. But it seems absurd to label something that *didn't* happen as an "event." And what about unknown fact? Is "Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK" an event? Or is that subject to dispute depending on who you ask? – user4894 Mar 13 '15 at 21:58
  • @user4894 It's irrelevant to what I asked but it's interesting. They are called eventualities or possible events or situations. "Possible event" probably answers your question. My question is, how to call an argument of an eventuality which is not an eventuality itself. – Atamiri Mar 13 '15 at 22:22
  • There are many types of entities which are not events: objects, processes, properties. But there is no more reason to group them as "non-events" than there would be to group, say, events and processes as "non-objects" I think. – Quentin Ruyant Mar 13 '15 at 23:27
  • @quen_tin Processes and properties (such as being an emperor) are, in fact, eventualities, too. But I think that objects is what the ontology I mean treats as noneventualities. The problem with this term is that calling a person "object" is a bit bizarre. – Atamiri Mar 13 '15 at 23:32
  • It's a bit bizarre, but if you think about it, "Caesar" is the "direct object" in that sentence, so even our English terminology tends in that direction. What may be making it hard is that it looks like Davidson extended first order logic to handle events (FOL requires a well defined universe of values, and events are hard to bound that way), so events may be the special case, not the rule. – Cort Ammon Mar 14 '15 at 04:48
  • @CortAmmon You're right, English terminology might suggest that. But direct objects can be events, too. As for the universe (of discourse), I'd say it's well-defined. Davidson's main point is that events are (reified as) individuals: There was a stabbing, Brutus did it and Caesar underwent it. – Atamiri Mar 14 '15 at 08:26
  • @atamiri per my understanding of standard metaphysics (if there is such thing...) events, processes and objects *have* properties (events are not properties) and processes are 4D objects (objects with temporal parts). Also it's not uncommon to talk of object about persons because 'object' is a technical term here (something like: concrete particular in space-time which persists in time). But you can say "objects and persons (or living beings?)" if you wish to stay close to common sense. – Quentin Ruyant Mar 14 '15 at 10:15
  • Anyway terminology and classifications in metaphysics differ a lot among authors. I think my understanding comes from Lowe's introduction to metaphysics. – Quentin Ruyant Mar 14 '15 at 10:16
  • @quen_tin Yes, I agree that terminology differs a lot. My understanding comes from philosophy of language (and commonsense reasoning). I guess there's no good word for what I asked ("objects and persons" are two words). In the book I read it seems that the author uses "non-eventuality" for good reason. – Atamiri Mar 14 '15 at 14:07
  • Given the opening for "terminology differs between authors" and the discussion of 4D objects, I think it is reasonable to reference the foremost authority on Time and point out that it is best phrased as "a big ball of wibbly wobbily timey wimey stuff." The rest is just the devil in the details! – Cort Ammon Mar 14 '15 at 15:41
  • I figured in a discussion of terminology for events and non events, the good doctor was a pretty reasonable source – Cort Ammon Mar 14 '15 at 15:54

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Davidson used alternatively the terms substance or object for this basic kind of entities.

Many events are changes in a substance. If an event a is a change in some substance, then a = b only if b is also a change in the same substance . . . But it would be a mistake to suppose that even for events that are naturally described as changes in an object, we must describe them . . . by referring to the object. ("The Individuation of Events")

Another (non Davidsonian) terminological option is to speak about spatial particulars or individuals (=substances) vs. temporal particulars (=events).

Persons are regarded in many ontologies as just substances (e.g. in Aristotle) or objects (as in Davidson). But there are also exceptions. Kant stressed the difference between subject and object, although in his system the term subject is not ontological. Heidegger posited the person as a special kind of entity. His ontological term is Dasein i.e. being-there. Sartre posited a similar ontological category for persons, and adopted for it Hegel's term being-for-itself).

Ram Tobolski
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