Thomas G. W. Crowther

Some writers have argued that processes are ‘continuants’; that they persist over time in the way that concrete material objects do on an endurantist ontology. The first part of the chapter attempts to show that these arguments should be resisted. The second part of the chapter develops the idea that there is a philosophically significant analogy between process and space-filling stuffs. According to this analogy, process can be understood as a kind of ‘temporal stuff’. The chapter responds to arguments against this analogy and goes on to argue that an understanding of the analogy with space-filling stuff is central to a grasp of why processes are not continuants. The final part of the chapter, again drawing on this analogy, goes on to develop the idea that processes occupy time by ‘occurrent renewal’ over periods of time.

ABSTRACT The aim of the paper is to describe the temporal ontology of that basic manifestation of social agency that is the living of life together. The distinction between states, processes and events is clarified. There are notions of ‘doing things together’ that fall into each of these temporal categories. The ontology of the state of friendship is examined as one instance of living life together. Friendship is a state of community between agents that is sustained by a continuity of processes and events that are characteristic manifestations of the state, some (but not all) of which are processes of doing things together. The continuity of processes and events involved in friendship is distinctive in lacking a telic point. Further instances of shared life that possess this characteristic temporal structure are described. It is argued that this notion of a mode of shared life cannot be recovered from various kinds of temporally extended agential structures that are the ingredients of Michael Bratman’s work on shared agency. In so doing, I clarify the notion of a shared life and make a case for the fruitfulness of approaching questions about joint action from the perspective of work on the ontology of time occupation.

There is a much‐discussed form of argument the conclusion of which is that we do not directly perceive space‐filling material objects themselves, only parts of their surfaces. Donald Davidson's view that events are temporal particulars invites a structurally similar argument about the direct perception of events. In this paper, I spell out such an argument and consider a number of possible solutions to it. I explore the idea that a satisfactory response to this problem in the philosophy of perception can be grounded in a temporal ontology that includes temporal stuff as well as temporal particulars. I discuss different ways of developing this idea, and I go on to identify what I take to be the most promising version of an approach of this kind.

This chapter works towards a better understanding of the contribution made by the state of wakeful consciousness to the stream of consciousness over time. It does this through reflection on what is missing in certain cases of non-wakeful consciousness. Granting the assumption that dreaming is a mode of perceptual imagination, the chapter contrasts perceptual imagination in the wakeful condition with perceptual imagination in dreaming sleep. It makes a suggestion about what is missing that draws on claims about the wakeful condition made by Brian O’Shaughnessy. According to this suggestion, what is missing is the occurrence of intentional mental action accompanied by non-inferential self-awareness. Building on a critique of O’Shaughnessy’s discussion, the chapter develops a ‘Capacitation Thesis’ about wakeful consciousness, according to which wakefulness is a state of being capacitated with respect to a range of relevant capacities. Imagination in the dream is discussed in the light of this thesis.

This introductory chapter gives a detailed overview of current debates and questions in the philosophy of perceptual ephemera. The chapter begins by identifying the notion of ‘the ephemeral’ that connects the contributions to the volume; the notion of ‘the insubstantial’ rather than the notion of ‘the fleeting’ or ‘short-lived’. Various ontological and phenomenological questions associated with ephemera and with perceptual experience of the ephemeral are then distinguished. The authors go on to identify a number of more specific themes in the philosophy of the ephemeral, and provide a brief introduction to how the contributors to this collection engage with these themes. The authors attempt to make a case for the view that reflection on ‘ephemera’ and ‘the ephemeral’ may enrich and challenge prevailing approaches in contemporary philosophy of perception.

This chapter is an attempt to arrive at an understanding of the notion of a ‘solid look’, as such looks or appearances are understood as properties of material objects rather than of experiences. The early sections of the chapter explore why the notion of solid looks is particularly puzzling. As M.G.F. Martin has argued, solidity is not an observational property, but neither is the relation between solidity and its appearance contingent. I argue that the look of solidity should be understood in terms of the distinctive way that objects with such a look manifestly take up space, a way of taking up space that is to be elucidated in terms of the notions of touch and of capacities for bodily action.

Life is a battlefield onto which we are thrown at birth, with only fate and fortune settling upon where we land. Wherever we land, whether it's on the front lines or surrounded by a network of defenses, we are all asking the same question: why are we here? The problem with this question, however, is that we tend to answer it from our own relative positions, and so we all arrive at different conclusions. The many answers we've created have filled the field. They have become banners that are raised high so that we can see and follow them. These banners are always at risk of being toppled though; always at risk of losing their capacity for belief. But then, what if belief is more than a mere by-product of our universal search? What if belief can change the very fabric of this field? That is, what if truth is actually irrelevant, and the only real thing that makes up this battlefield is the belief, and consequently the collective will, which we invest in our answers?

‘Liberty’, as a word, is thrown about contemporary society as casually as a ball is on a summer’s day, and yet, does anyone have a grasp on what it is? If it is freedom from limitation, then liberty must represent nothing less than consciousness without restraint. But though this straightforward definition implies its acquisition to be equally straightforward, the full spectrum of liberty would certainly prove to be one of the most elusive concepts imaginable. As a result, what we have, and what we throw about so indifferently, is a Substitute - a poor kind of replica of the real thing. True liberty - Omniversal liberty - is much less tangible however, and represents the equilibrium that occurs when anything is possible, but where the capacity to ever allow one possibility to dominate over another becomes impossible to maintain.

Reality is two-fold, composed of the lighted world as revealed in Genesis, and the darker primordiality which preceded it. The illuminated represents that which the human mind can comprehend, manipulate and re-order to its will: a “designed” and mechanical universe of parts. But behind it, in the backspace of reality, remains the darkness. A formless state of pre-creation, the darkness exists as an endless series of intertwining “signatures” – single possibilities waiting to be created in the illuminated forefront of reality. Permitting each and every part of the lighted world to be connected to the rest, it possesses a “design” all of its own. The question is, if we are blind in the dark, how could we ever come to know it?