Functional properties exemplifications

Now, it is one issue whether functional properties are identical with their first-order realizing properties it is another whether every instance of a functional property is identical with some instance of one of its first-order realizing properties. The claim that every instance of a functional property is identical with some instance of one of its first-order realizing properties is compatible with the conception of events as property exemplifications. On the conception of properties as universals, instances of properties are just things that have them. Thus, a red truck is an instance of the universal (the property) redness. Since events are things that can have second-order properties, they can be instances of such properties and so can be typed as such. A property exemplification theory of events can, however, distinguish properties the exemplification of which are events from properties that are possessed by events. And it is compatible with such a view that the events that have functional properties (such as the property of being an occupant of a role) are exemplifications of physical properties. Thus, it is compatible with the property exemplification conception of events that even if no functional property is a physical property, every instance of a functional property is a physical event. 

I will illustrate this with Kim s (1973, 1976) property exemplification account of events. On that account, a (monadic) event is an object s having a property at a time (or throughout an interval of time). (Alternatively, an event is the exemplification of a property in a space-time region.) It is useful here to use notation developed by Kim. Let x, P, i be read as rhe event (or state) of x s having P at t. The brackets [ ] are rhus understood as functioning like the iota operator. Property P is the constitutive property of the event [x, P, t] it is the property of which [x, P, t] is an exemplification X is the event s constitutive object, and t is its constitutive time. The nonduplication principle for (monadic) events is this no two events can have exactly the same constitutive object, constitutive property, and... 

Thus, even on a property exemplification conception of events, type role-functionalism can be combined with token physicalism (for events). Type role-functionalism, you will recall, is the view that a mental event type M is the event type of undergoing an event of some type or other tokens of which would play a certain role R. It is open to a type role-functionalist to maintain that every instance of an Af type event is a physical event. The property of being an M type event (an event tokens of which would play R) would be a characterizing property of an event rather than a constitutive property. A physical event (an event with a constitutive physical property) would be an instance of M in virtue of the fact that it plays role R. This combination of type role-functionalism and token physicalism is compatible with mental events being causes even given physical closure and the physical effects principle, for it entails that every mental event is a physical event. 

I won t pursue these matters here. The reason is that NRP theorists must reject this combination of type role-functionalism and token physicalism, for they deny that mental event tokens are identical with physical event tokens. Mental event tokens, they hold, are exemplifications of functional properties and are not identical with exemplifications of physical properties that realize the functional properties. Let us see how to spell out their idea using Kim s theory of events. The idea is that functional properties will be constitutive properties of events rather than characterizing properties of events. Thus, let T be a functional property and P be one of its physical realizers. An exemplification of T by x at t will be the event [x, F, t] the property of which the event is an exemplification will be functional property F. If property T is realized on the occasion in question by P, then X will have Fat t in virtue of having Pat t. It follows that x, P, t] occurs and has role R, and indeed x, P, t will realize x, F, t by virtue of [x, P, t] having R But although [x, P, t R, it is nevertheless the case that x, P, t + x, F, t]. The reason is that P F. Thus, if there are functional properties and they are constitutive properties of events, then exemplifications of functional properties are not identical with exemplifications of their physical realizers. 

NRP theorists need not, of coutse, be committed to the details of Kim s particular property exemplification account of events. 1 was just illustrating how their view might be explicated within his theory. They could instead hold David Lewis s (i986d) property exemplification account of events, so long as they maintain, contra Lewis, that some events have functional essences. 

I will speak of NRP theorists as taking functional properties to be constitutive properties of events. Alternatively, we could say that they take functional properties to be essential properties of events in either Lewis s or Yablo s (1992b) sense of essential properties of events, for Yablo s property exemplification account of events also allows for events with functional essences. By a functional event token, I will henceforth mean a second-order (or higher-order) event token, an event with a functional property as a constitutive property (or an event with a functional essence). Notice that although this role-functionalist view of event tokens does not treat quantification as an object-forming operation, it treats it as a particularforming operation, for events are particulars. 

If we embrace an abundant conception of properties, then there is a substantive question of which properties are such that they are constitutive properties of events. For example, if disjunction is a property-forming operation, and so there are disjunctive properties, it by no means follows that disjunctive properties can be constitutive properties of events. Also, even if complementation is a property-forming operation, and so there are negative properties, it is a nontrivial question whether negative properties can be constitutive properties of events — whether, that is, omissions are events. 1 will recur to these matters later. The point to note for now is that on an abundant conception of properties, no extant property exemplification account of events counts literally every property as such that it can be a constitutive (or essential) property of an event. One might embrace quantification as a property-forming operation but reject it as an eventforming operation and so reject the claim that functional properties can be constitutive properties of events. Whether functional properties can be constitutive properties of events, and so whether there are functional events in the sense in question, is a controversial issue. The issue, moreover, as I see, is inseparable from the issue of whether such entities would be causes. 

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