Abstract

A popular claim in recent philosophy of mind and action is that events only exist once they are over. This has been taken to have the consequence that many temporal phenomena cannot be understood ‘from the inside’, as they are unfolding, purely in terms of events. However, as I argue here, the claim that events exist only when over is incoherent. I consider two ways of understanding the claim and the notion of existence it involves: one that ties existence to the logic of quantification, and another that assimilates the existence of an event to that of a continuant. The first of these, I argue, cannot be the right way to understand the target claim, as there are serious logical obstacles to regarding this notion of existence as temporally variable. The second, on the other hand, leaves it ultimately mysterious what the existence of an event could amount to. I close with the suggestion that the undeniable temporal asymmetries which parties to the debate are interested in are properly understood in perspectival, not ontological, terms.

中文翻译：

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事件是过去式吗？

摘要

最近的思想和行动哲学中的一个流行主张是，事件只有在结束后才存在。这被认为会导致许多时间现象无法“从内部”理解，因为它们正在展开，纯粹是根据事件。然而，正如我在这里争论的那样，事件仅在结束时才存在的说法是不连贯的。我考虑了两种理解主张及其所涉及的存在概念的方法：一种将存在与量化逻辑联系起来，另一种将事件的存在同化为连续的存在。我认为，第一个不能是理解目标声明的正确方法，因为将这种存在的概念视为时间变量存在严重的逻辑障碍。另一方面，第二个，使事件的存在最终变得神秘。我最后提出的建议是，辩论各方感兴趣的不可否认的时间不对称性在视角而非本体论方面得到了正确理解。