Abstract
We argue that mereological essentialism for events is independent of mereological essentialism for objects, and that the philosophical fallout of embracing mereological essentialism for events is minimal. We first outline what we should consider to be the parts of events, and then highlight why one would naturally be inclined to think that the object-question and the event-question are linked. Then, we argue that they are not. We also diagnose why this is the case and emphasize the upshot. In particular, we argue that the way we evaluate modal claims which concern events differs from the way we evaluate modal claims which concern objects. Ultimately, then, to our title question we say: the answer does not matter as much as you might think.
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Notes
Could we just paraphrase away talk of objects as event parts? That is, for instance, could we talk about Prince William as merely the subject of his bachelor party instead of as part of the party? We might be tempted to so as this would, at a minimum, have the advantage of making the problem we are interested in here hard to articulate. But it is crucial that we do not rush to an under-motivated position, even if it seems to some intuitive or natural. After all, the metaphysics of events has garnered a great deal of attention in the literature. And we might reasonably ask: do our well-developed theories of events entail that objects are parts of events? (As we explain below, the answer will be in the affirmative for many of the prominent theories of events.) We revisit a more substantive version of this question in §1.
We might think this problem of MEE is particular pressing for those who follow Fine (2010). Fine sketches a very general framework of part-whole, in which mereology is merely a small branch. This approach to mereology is noteworthy here as Fine is explicitly interested in extending the notion of a part beyond its application to material objects. In Fine’s view, there is a plurality of kinds of mereological relations and hybrid parts. That said, even for those who reject Fine’s more generalized theory, and instead accept a more orthodox view of mereology, MEE prompts a serious concern. This concern principally shakes out of how we conceptualize events, as we discuss below.
For the sake of brevity with regard to the present point, we assume perdurantism is true—i.e., the view that persisting entities are 4D space-time worms with temporal parts. This, of course, is controversial. While many accept perdurantism, others do not. Nevertheless, the veracity of perdurantism is ultimately orthogonal to our aims here. We merely invoke it as an aside here to undermine the claim that temporal parts could be the sole parts of events.
One way to capture a crucial issue here may be, is parthood transitive when it comes to events? Two discussions inform a robust answer here. On the one hand, mereology, one the other hand, theories of events. In mereology, parthood is standardly taken to be transitive. That said, Fine (2010) argues that some parthood relations are not transitive. Since our focus is on events as understood by Quine, Lewis, and Kim—and all three adhere to the traditional view that parthood is transitive—we follow orthodox mereology here. So, we take parthood to be transitive. In regards to events themselves, the theory of events one favors will dictate whether or not the way events are conceived of leaves room for an answer to this transitivity question that differs from the answer to it with respect to objects.
We might further wonder if, say, properties are of a sort which could even be parts. We will not engage with this tangential question here, but notice that bundle and trope theorist will certainly insist that they can be.
See Quine (1960) for more on Quine’s view about what the material contents of objects/events are.
The first subscript after the W (i.e. a, 1, 4, 6, 7) picks out a world in which the event occurs. The second subscript after the W (i.e. d) picks out the minimal spacetime region of the specified world in which you walk the dog at that world. While there are five occurrences of the event, your actual dog only went on one walk this morning; the others are taken by counterparts.
While Kim speaks of constituents rather than parts (Kim 1976: 162), here we take constituents to be parts since, in general, when philosophers speak of form and matter as constituents of an object, they mean parts of the object. So it is natural to think when Kim speaks of an object, a property, and a time as constituents of an event, he means they are parts of the event. On this point, also see Kim’s discussion of the inclusion-relation: the official line of his view here is that, although the event e1 of Sebastian’s stroll is not identical to the event e2 of Sebastian’s leisurely stroll, there is a sense in which the second includes the first. And he notes that “obviously, the sense in which an assassination includes a killing or strolling leisurely includes strolling is very different from the sense in which, say, my walking to the door includes my moving my left foot to take the first step and the burning of the barn includes the burning of the roof of the barn. But I assume that it is intuitively plausible to say there is some relation here that can be called ‘inclusion’” (Kim 1976: 170).
Where the existence condition for event, e, is e exists just in case the object x has the property P at time t. And the identity condition for events e and e* are: e = e* just in case e’s constituent object is identical to e*’s constituent object, e’s constituent property is identical to e*’s constituent property, and e’s constituent time is identical to e*’s constituent time.
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Daniels, P.R., Goswick, D. Do Events Have Their Parts Essentially?. Acta Anal 32, 313–320 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-016-0311-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-016-0311-2