When Are Events Parts?

Abstract

In this paper I propose a mereological account of ordinary macro-events of experience that is based on two central features of these entities, namely their spatio-temporal character, and their status as things that belong to event-kinds. I argue that, from the perspective of descriptive metaphysics, these features must be incorporated in the analysis of the part-whole relations of events, and I show the steps involved in achieving this task. Furthermore, I argue that the program initiated here is quite promising: the analysis of event-part that I propose stands up quite well against the more serious objections, and the apparatus I provide for the mereological conditions of events can be easily modified to yield similar conditions for material objects.