Event and time. Ontological foundations of causal relations (Q2783399)

This well-written monograph deals with a philosophical theory of events and the ontological foundations of causation. The first two chapters, which contain nearly two thirds of the book, present the author's own approach and discuss some problems of more or less prominent philosophical theories of events. The author distinguishes between tokens and types of events. The types are used to explain the similarity and the repeatability of events, but they are ontologically dependent on the tokens. Basically, an event-token is referred to by means of a singular term \(sA\), that is, the combination of the operator \(s\) ``the event that'' and a singular or universal statement \(A\). Since these event-terms will be used in a theory of causation, \(A\) has to contain exclusively empirical terms and need not be analytically true or false. Scheffler extends this conception to a full theory of events that treats the identity of events, various notions of the existence of events, parts of events, negative and fictional events, as well as a measure of the similarity of events. The author carefully discusses the pros and cons of every step and presents helpful definitions of the intuitive notions. Chapter 3 comes with the very general title ``Zeit'', but the reader is not led to expect a comprehensive examination of time. The chapter discusses the relationship between the ordering function of time and causation, the temporal location of events and their volatile character. The fourth chapter is devoted to causality. Building on the results of prominent theories of causation and the findings of the preceding chapters, the author argues that causality is characterized by a weak form of transitivity, defined in Chapter 4.3.3. A brief chapter on Hume's momentous definition of causation, which is cited in the opening paragraph of the preface, ends the book.