Verbs, Times and Objects

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe aim of the paper is to demonstrate the fruitfulness of the influential verb typology developed by Zeno Vendler for recent debates in the philosophy of perception. Section one explains the verb typology and explains how Vendler applies it to different perceptual notions. Section two identifies various questions that arise from observations in Vendler’s paper that suggest that there is a match between the temporal properties of perceptual verb objects and the complex verb phrases of which they are a part. Subsequent discussion focuses on just one of these questions. Section three identifies and rejects a simple proposal about how to answer this question. Section four develops a ‘limited matching’ account. In the visual perception of events and processes there seems to be a match between the temporal duration, order and location of the events and processes which are the objects of perception and the subject’s perceiving them. But this matching is absent in cases of the perception of primary substances; objects which manifestly endure over time. Section five identifies and responds to some criticisms of this matching account. The conclusion notes some consequences of the discussion for contemporary debates about the temporal characteristics of perception.