On Dying as a Process
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10350978 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Fred Feldman (0000-0002-6041-864X, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1989 |
| Volume | 50 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 375-375 |
| Publication date | 1989-12-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0031-8205 • E-ISSN: 1933-1592 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2107965 |
| OpenAlex | W2029722319 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 2 |
Winning' is ambiguous. In one sense, when we say that someone is winning a race, we mean roughly that he's just now being first to cross the finish line. If it's now correct to say that he's winning the race, then, at all times in the future, it will be correct to say that he won. This is the sense of 'winning'. The word has another sense. If a runner is leading the pack, and all the evidence suggests that he will win, we may say, even before he has won, that he is winning. This is the sense of 'winning'. Ryle pointed out that a runner may be winning (in the process sense) even though it's going to turn out that he doesn't win (in the success sense).' Lots of other verbs are like 'winning'. 'Finishing' is a good example. Suppose a man is interrupted just as he is nearing the end of a story. He could say, 'Just as I was finishing the story, I was interrupted. What with all the commotion, I never did finish that story.' The first 'finish' is in the process sense; the second is in the success sense. The man's statement could be true. 'Dying' is ambiguous in this way. It too has a process sense and a success sense. Let's use dyingg' to indicate the success sense, and 'dyingz' to indicate the process sense. The success sense is in one way utterly unproblematic to say that a thing is dying at a time is just to say that it then dies. In another way, I think, the success sense is deeply problematic. Since it is hard to give a truly revealing explanation of what we mean when we say that a thing dies at a time, it is equally hard to give a truly revealing explanation of what we mean when we say that a thing is dying at a time. But that's a puzzle for another occasion
Business · Process (computing · Process management · Programming language · Computer Science · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Philosophy and History of Science
| Citations per year | 0.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2024 - 2024 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |