Chapter 7 - Realizer-Functionalism and the Metaphysics of Events

Summary

In this chapter, I begin to develop my metaphysics of negative actions in more detail. I articulate a realizer-functionalist theory of negative actions: negative actions are events which play the ensuring role; ordinary, ‘positive’ events play this role; therefore, negative actions are identical to these ordinary, ‘positive’ events; we needn’t posit metaphysically negative entities such as absences. I show that this theory is prima facie incompatible with the popular property-exemplification theory of events, and that the latter theory fits better with a view in which negative actions are realized by positive events, but not identical to them. I articulate and defend a version of the property-exemplification theory which is compatible with realizer-functionalism.