What is an event? What sort of object are they? How is a
given event distinguished from other events and other
objects? This thesis on science oriented metaphysics will
take Davidson's account of events as its starting point to
answer the above questions. It will develop this conception
of events into one that is consistent with the special theory
of relativity by updating its notions of change, cause and
property.
The new concept of a proper property, a generalization of the
notion of an invariant, is introduced to solve some of these
metascientific problems. Other features of the work include
an analysis of the Lorentz force equation as it applies to
one family of cases of causation, showing that a use of cause
and effect to help individuate events cannot be complete
until relativistic features are built into it. I propose that
the conception of a proper property will also solve this
worry over the nature of causation as it affects the issues
of events above. In particular, it will attempt to solve a
charge of circularity which has been leveled at Davidson's
account.
This property analysis also has the feature that it makes the
account of events which started with Davidsonian inspiration
(i.e. causes and effects are intimately connected to events)
more like Kim's. Kim's account of events is modified on the
grounds it does not do justice to our intuitions about
changes and events.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/12759 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Douglas, Keith |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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