Event (philosophy)

In philosophy, events are objects in time or instantiations of properties in objects. On some views, only changes in the form of acquiring or losing a property can constitute events, like the lawn's becoming dry.^[1] According to others, there are also events that involve nothing but the retaining of a property, e.g. the lawn's staying wet.^[1][2] Events are usually defined as particulars that, unlike universals, cannot repeat at different times.^[2] Processes are complex events constituted by a sequence of events.^[3] But even simple events can be conceived as complex entities involving an object, a time and the property exemplified by the object at this time.^[4][5] Traditionally, metaphysicians tended to emphasize static being over dynamic events. This tendency has been opposed by so-called process philosophy or process ontology, which ascribes ontological primacy to events and processes.^[6][7]