Abstract
Here, we defend the thesis whereby the event (conceived as a mental and social abstract entity) plays a main role of sense in the meaning of certain sentences. This thesis is based on the one hand on recent work in the metaphysics of so-called “happening” entities, which has led to a distinction between concrete physical processes and abstract events, the latter being conceived as psychological constructs accounting for stabilities or changes in the world. Furthermore, we look back at the work on intentionality carried out in the Brentanian school at the turn of the 20th century and we relate abstract events to the mental states of affairs studied by Twardowski but which were then neglected by contemporary philosophers of language. Abstract events, thus characterized, have the contingent property of occurring, when facts obtain and realize (or satisfy) them. We suggest that the facts in question (qualified by us as “occurrence-makers”) correspond to Wittgensteinian states of affairs (giving them a connectionist rather than a relational interpretation).
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Notes
In a recent literature review, Antony Galton (2008) showed that there still are as many classifications of occurrences as there are authors. The problem is due to misunderstandings of the nature of these entities, rather than the choice of classification criteria.
Peter Geach (1968, p. 13) coined the term “Cambridge change” to denote the concept of continuous change promoted by Cambridge philosophers, including John McTaggart and Russell. This concept is also known as “at-at” theory. To account for the continuous nature of change, most versions favor the indivisible instant as the time in which facts obtain.
Note that Cleland considers that a process can exist without producing effects (in terms of a change in property). Indeed, the effects of a process can be countered by the effects of another process. Suppose that I push a door and that it does not move. In this situation, the door resists my pressure - giving rise to the existence of two contrary processes that cancel each other out.
Note that Kassel (2019, 2020) adopts a presentist theory of time, according to which existing entities exist in their full identity at instants. This excludes de facto the existence of four-dimensional entities. Consequently, if facts of physical localization obtain at instants, a series of facts existing at different instants cannot concretely (physically) exist. This is a reason for identifying movements in particular and events in general as abstract entities. Intuitively, the event ‘WalkEvent’ mentally reifies a series of facts.
Let us judge this matter by considering the expressions used, for example, by Neil Wilson (1974, p. 305): “Hurricanes, like rainbows, are a philosophical nuisance. Most events – like the eruption of Vesuvius, the execution of Charles I – do not move, but some events (hurricanes, battles), like individuals, do seem to move around” and by Peter Hacker (1982, p. 14): “The mobility of events is decidedly bizarre. Cursory reflection suggests that events can move, either under their own steam or by transportation. A party may move from the lawn to a marquee when it starts to rain, and a battle may sway up and down a hill and across fields”. Hence, these two authors end up by conceding that these are simply ways of speaking. Like Dretske and Davidson, Wilson and Hacker are advocates of the concrete event, which explains their embarrassment. Our point is that only the abstract event is likely to solve (elegantly) this puzzle.
This notion of derived occupation in space by event echoes a thesis advanced by Davidson to justify that objects and events, while being distinct entities, can occupy the same spatiotemporal location; quite simply, they do not occupy space in the same way (Davidson 1985, p. 176): “events and objects may be related to locations in space-time in different ways; it may be, for example, that events occur at a time in a place while objects occupy places at times”. Our position on this point is mixed. Of course, our events do not directly occupy the same space as the objects whose stability or changes they account for. But it is the physical processes which, by being anchored in the objects, occupy (differently) the same spatiotemporal location as the objects.
This essay brings together Brentano’s works from the 1880 and 1890 s (during his “pre-reist” period) and was edited long after his death by Roderick Chisholm and Wilhelm Baumgartner.
The status of the mental object is subject to debate, namely whether it is necessary to mentally distinguish between an object and a content. According to Guillaume Fréchette (2015), three-term models are still being pitted against four-term models.
For a detailed presentation of these theories, cf. Jeffrey Brower (2018).
For a detailed presentation of these theories and their contemporary developments, the reader may refer to the study by (Brandl & Textor 2020).
Here, we adopt a thesis defended by Antonelli (2006), according to which the defense of this principle prompted Brentano (during his so-called reist phase) to simplify his ontology to the bare minimum, in order to attribute existence only to real things and thereby renounce the existence of the thought-of A. In contrast (and as we shall see in the next section), Twardowski supported the existence of the mental object by developing a very innovative theory of the object.
For a detailed analysis of this essay and a general presentation of Twardowski’s work, the reader may refer to (Smith, 1989).
Both Bolzano and Twardowski believed that some representations represent ideal non-real objects, for example in the mathematical domain the representation [2 times 2], which represents the number 4. An “anobjectual” representation must therefore be understood as a representation that does not – actually – represent an object, as is the case for [King George VI] or [the king of France]. It should be noted that our bracketed notation for representations and then propositions does not assume that these entities have a particular structure.
In her (Betti 2005) Propositions et états de choses chez Twardowski, Arianna Betti states that Twardowski completed his theory of the state of affairs during a course in logic that he gave in Vienna during the winter of 1894 (the notes of which have been recovered and were recently translated into German by Betti and Raspa, 2016). Smith (op. cit., § 5 Sachverhalt vs. Judgment-Content: Twardowski, Immanence and Idealism) clarifies that, by upholding Husserl’s criticisms, Twardowski will make his state of affairs an ideal entity populating a Platonic realm. However, Twardowski later changed this position by attributing a mental nature to the state of affairs, as evidenced by his (Twardowski 1911/1979) Actions and Products. In the present article, we adopt the latter position.
This point is emphasized by Betti (2017), who asserts that Brentano would not have validated this arbitrary choice.
For reasons of space, we cannot develop their arguments. We refer the interested reader to the articles cited in reference.
As Mulligan et coll. (op. cit.) point out, Wittgenstein in the Tractatus clearly considers that the states of affairs in which objects participate depend directly on their Aristotelian form: “It is, Wittgenstein tells us, not accidental to an object that it can occur in those Sachverhalte in which it does occur. Every one of its possibilities of occurrence in states of affairs must be part of the nature of the object itself, must be written in the object from the very start (2.012, 2.0121, 2.0123). Its possibility of occurring in states of affairs Wittgenstein calls the form of an object (2.0141)”.
We could make additional ontological commitments for social and mental entities but this is prohibited by the maximum wordcount for the present article.
The reader will note that an object like Table is a physical object to which a function is attributed; this social fact participates in the occurrence-makers. For the sake of simplicity, we shall ignore it. The same is true in the following examples.
Here, we borrow Galton’s (2012) relation of perpetuation between processes. This relation is to be understood as a causal propagation between two existing processes: the first active process entertains the activity of the second process. For example, the table moves as long as Paul pushes it.
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Kassel, G. Abstract Events in Semantics. Philosophia 50, 1913–1930 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-022-00498-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-022-00498-9