Events are entities like collisions and speeches, as opposed to things like planets and people. Many are changes, for example things being first hot and then cold. All lack a thing’s full identity over time: either they are instantaneous, or they have temporal parts, like a speech’s words, which stop them being wholly present at an instant; whereas things, which lack temporal parts, are wholly present throughout their lives.
Events may be identified with two types of entity: facts, like the fact that David Hume dies, corresponding to truths like ‘Hume dies’; or particulars which, like things, correspond to names, for example ‘Hume’s death’. Which one they are taken to be affects the content of many metaphysical theories: such as that all particulars are things; that times, or causes and effects, or actions, are events; or that mental events are physical.
Temporal Passage and Temporal Parts
