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Omissions and Their Effects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2020

MARTIN MONTMINY
MARTIN MONTMINY*
Affiliation:
UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMAmontminy@ou.edu
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Abstract

According to what I call the identity view, omissions are actual events. For example, the nominal ‘Ali's non-jogging’ denotes whatever Ali is doing at the time she is said not to be jogging. Some have objected that omissions (and more generally absences) cannot be events, since the two do not have the same causal relations. I show how advocates of the identity view can offer a pragmatic account of the data the objection relies on.

Keywords

omissionsactionseventscausationcausal relevance
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 6 , Issue 4 , Winter 2020 , pp. 502 - 516
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Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2020

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Footnotes

Thanks to Jay Newhard for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this essay. I am also grateful to an anonymous reviewer for this journal.

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