Events at The University of Manchester
  • University home
  • Events
  • Home
  • Exhibitions
  • Conferences
  • Lectures and seminars
  • Performances
  • Events for prospective students
  • Sustainability events
  • Family events
  • All Events

Tom Crowther (Warwick): Recent Work on Temporal Ontology: Processes as Continuants and Processes as Stuffs

image
Dates:8 March 2016
Times:15:00 - 17:00
What is it:Seminar
Organiser:School of Social Sciences
Who is it for:University staff, Adults, Current University students, General public
Speaker:Tom Crowther
See travel and contact information
Add to your calendar

Other events

  • In category "Seminar"
  • In group "(SoSS) Philosophy"
  • By School of Social Sciences

Abstract:

A number of philosophers, including Rowland Stout (2015) and Helen Steward (2015), have attempted to argue that processes—for example, running, or walking—are ‘continuants’: that processes exist across time in the way that concrete material objects do on an endurantist ontology. In the first part of this paper, I argue that this idea should be resisted, and attempt to explain why.

Some philosophers, for example, Alexander Mourelatos (1978) and Barry Taylor (1985) have proposed that there is an analogy between processes (or ‘activities’) and space-filling stuffs. This suggestion has been developed, in different ways, by Crowther (2011), Hornsby (2012) and Steward (2013). But there is disagreement in the recent literature about the status and nature of this analogy. Stout (1997) and (2003), for example, offers a number of different arguments for rejecting the view that processes are the temporal analogues of space-filling stuff. Steward (2013) accepts the analogy, but develops it in a distinctive way, arguing that while processes are temporal forms of stuff, they are nevertheless countable individuals.

In the second part of the paper, I attempt to reject the arguments that Stout has offered against the idea that process is a temporal form of stuff. But I also offer arguments against the way that this analogy has been developed in Steward (2013). These arguments involve some further development of the idea that there is an analogy between process and space-filling stuff. It will also require an acknowledgment of the fact that there are important differences between temporal stuff and space-filling stuff. Understanding these differences will help us to see even more clearly why processes cannot be continuants.

Speaker

Tom Crowther

  • http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/philosophy/people/faculty/crowther/

Travel and Contact Information

Find event

B23
Zochonis Building
Manchester

 

Contact us

  • +44 (0) 161 306 6000

Find us

The University of Manchester
Oxford Rd
Manchester
M13 9PL
UK

Connect with the University

  • Facebook page for The University of Manchester
  • X (formerly Twitter) page for The University of Manchester
  • YouTube page for The University of Manchester
  • Instagram page for The University of Manchester
  • TikTok page for The University of Manchester
  • LinkedIn page for The University of Manchester

  • Privacy /
  • Copyright notice /
  • Accessibility /
  • Freedom of information /
  • Charitable status /
  • Royal Charter Number: RC000797
  • Close menu
  • Home
    • Featured events
    • Today's events
    • The Whitworth events
    • Manchester Museum events
    • Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre events
    • Martin Harris Centre events
    • The John Rylands Library events
    • Exhibitions
    • Conferences
    • Lectures and seminars
    • Performances
    • Events for prospective students
    • Sustainability events
    • Family events
    • All events