occurrent

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French occurrent and its source, Latin occurrēns.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /əˈkʌɹənt/
  • Audio (Southern England):(file)
  • Rhymes: -ʌɹənt

Adjective

occurrent (comparative more occurrent, superlative most occurrent)

  1. Current, actual, occurring.
  3. (philosophy) Currently or actively present in the mind.
    I hold the occurrent belief that I'm writing this sentence
    • 1951, Curt John Ducasse, Nature, mind, and death, La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Company, page 333:
      A clear example, although one drawn from a different situation, of unformulated yet occurrent belief would be that in which a clerk unrolls paper to wrap a parcel: there comes a moment when he believes that the length unrolled is enough.
    • 2016, Douglas N. Husak, Ignorance of Law: A Philosophical Inquiry, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 196:
      In such a case, my belief that the person I will meet is named Robert Barchi is clearly occurrent.
    • 2020 November 13, B. Brodaric, F. Neuhaus, Formal Ontology in Information Systems: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (FOIS 2020), IOS Press, →ISBN, page 147:
      One could imagine, for example, that an occurrent belief (e.g. that I'm allergic to apples) would trigger a dispositional desire (not to get an allergic crisis).

Derived terms

Noun

occurrent (plural occurrents)

  1. (now chiefly philosophy) An event, something that occurs.
    • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition II, section 2, member 4:
      the only comfort (saith Jovius) he had to ease his melancholy thoughts, was to hear news, and to listen after those ordinary occurrents, which were brought him cum primis, by letters or otherwise, out of the remotest parts of Europe.
  2. One who comes to meet another.

References

Adjective sense 2
  • Lavelle, Jane (2013), “What is it to have a mind?”, in Philosophy for Everyone, →ISBN, page 53

Anagrams

Latin

Verb

occurrent

  1. third-person plural future active indicative of occurrō
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