Abstract

In my dissertation, I defend the no event theory of events, which is a doctrine that there is no need to posit events as basic ontological entities per se because events are reducible to other basic ontological entities such as individual things and properties. The main body of the thesis is divided into two parts: The first part deals with the issue of what the ontological reduction and the no event view are. The second part deals with the issue of how this no event view can be actually applied to specific philosophical problems. ;In chapter 1, I elucidate three existing views on events and introduce the no event view. In chapter 2, I clarify what the methodology of event-reduction is. In chapter 3, I argue that the problem of adverbial modification can be explained away without reference to the concept of event, and accordingly, events need not be quantified over. This consideration of logical ontology offers us a primary foundation of the no event view. In chapter 4, I explicate a reductive methodology presented by Hans Reichenbach and then apply this methodology to the case of events. This chapter gives us a deeper clarification of the conception of the ontological reduction and the no event view. ;In chapter 5, I argue that causation does not require the ontology of events by attacking Davidson's Fregean argument deployed to assert that a singular causal statement is a statement expressed by a two-place predicate. In chapter 6, I consider how to avoid the notion of the same action under different descriptions by introducing Goldman's conception of level-generation, and then I show how to explain away Goldman's conception of level-generation involving structured particular events without committing to the concept of event. In the final chapter, after considering briefly how the type-type mind-body identity theory can be construed without recourse to the concept of event, I argue that the token-token identity theory , which is set up on the basis of the concept of the unstructured concrete event, is an untenable doctrine