Continuants and Occurrents: Peter Simons

Commonsense ontology contains both continuants and occurrents, but are continuants necessary? I argue that they are neither occurrents nor easily replaceable by them. The worst problem for continuants is the question in virtue of what a given continuant exists at a given time. For such truthmakers we must have recourse to occurrents, those vital to the continuant at that time. Continuants are, like abstract objects, invariants under equivalences over occurrents. But they are not abstract, and their being invariants enables us toinfer both their lack of temporal parts and that non-invariant predications about them must be relativized to times.
[E]ndurance is the property of finding its pattern reproduced in the temporal parts of the total event.
Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, 189.     

Disturbance of spontaneous and posed facial expressions in Parkinson's disease

The effects of Parkinson's disease (PD) on spontaneous and posed facial activity and on the control of facial muscles were assessed by comparing 22 PD patients with 22 controls. Facial activity was analysed using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS; Ekman & Friesen, 1978). As predicted, PD patients showed reduced levels of spontaneous and posed facial expression in reaction to unpleasant odours compared to controls. PD patients were less successful than controls in masking or intensifying negative facial expressions. PD patients were also less able than controls to imitate specific facial muscle movements, but did not differ in the ability to pose emotional facial expressions. These results suggest that not only is spontaneous facial activity disturbed in PD, but also to some degree the ability to pose facial expressions, to mask facial expressions with other expressions, and to deliberately move specific muscles in the face.     

I—Relations and Truthmaking

The metaphysics of relations (unlike their logic) is still in its infancy. We use the idea of truthmaking to gain purchase on this metaphysics. Assuming a modest supervenience conception of truthmaking, where true relational predications require multiply dependent truthmakers, these are indispensable relations (relational tropes). Though some such relations are required, none are needed for internal relatedness, nor for several other kinds of relational predication. Discerning the metaphysically basic kinds of relations is fraught with uncertainties, but must be tackled if progress is to be made.