Abstract

This dissertation examines the notion of 'negative events'. Examples of negative events are "My not talking to President Reagan now", "The Doctor's not administering the medicine to the patient at time t", etc. ;The first part of my thesis raises the question: 'Are negative events really events'? In order to answer this, we must first define what an 'event' is. I present two major theories of events in the philosophical literature--Roderick Chisholm's 'events as states of affairs' view, and Jaegwon Kim's 'events as property-exemplifications' view. I explain exactly how negative events can be accounted for by each of these two theories and conclude that negative events can be considered genuine events based on these two theories. ;The second chapter of my thesis concerns strategies for the elimination of negative events. It presents the following three arguments against the existence of negative events: The argument from 'incompatibility' and 'otherness' analyses. The argument from demarcation and identity criteria. Phenomenological considerations against negative events. Argument suggests that negative events can be expressed through purely positive determinations, and so there is no need to say that there are negative events. Argument says that negative events are not real events because we cannot intelligibly demarcate one from the other, and genuine events must have this property. Argument argues that strictly negative events are not met with in experience. I will argue that these three arguments , , and are wrong and that we have good reasons for postulating the existence of negative events. ;Chapter three is a section on the limits of negativity. It argues that although there are good reasons for postulating the existence of negative events, there are other sorts of negative entities which we cannot reasonably defend, and so our defense of negative entities must be limited. These problematic entities are objects possessing only negative properties, and the concept of total nothingness. Chapter three, then, sets some limits on the sorts of negative entities which are philosophically defensible