Starting with the example of irreducible quantum events, it is shown that other kinds of events also have an element of randomness. The hallmark of “genuine” events is their irreducibility to some previous conditions. A connection between this concept and the traditional notion of contingency is explored. This concept is further brought in connection with Peirce’s Firstness. Such a notion raises the problem of how to understand causation. It seems that causes deal with individual happenings. In fact, laws are only (...) general, while causal explanations necessarily involve localization in space and time and therefore indexical connection with events. When we deal with causes, we necessarily deal with their effects, which are shifted in space and delayed in time and so do not reveal the singularity of the event that is at the origin of the process. Our descriptions of events are really about the effects of the events, not the events themselves. This helps us to define what events are in all generality: an event is what cannot be fully described by our means although we have reason to assume that it is real. (shrink)

In Malta and Southern Italy, legends centred on the prestigious figure of the Sibyl are still known by the older people. In Majorca, the prophetic song attributed to the Greek Sibyl, Erythrea, is still sung on Christmas eve in the monastery-sanctuary of Lluc. This paper focuses on the history of this prophetic song since its adoption by the medieval Church and on its surviving tradition in certain areas of Catalan culture – a fabulous example of cultural continuity.

In Malta and Southern Italy, legends centred on the prestigious figure of the Sibyl are still known by the older people. In Majorca, the prophetic song attributed to the Greek Sibyl, Erythrea (6th century BC), is still sung on Christmas eve in the monastery-sanctuary of Lluc. This paper focuses on the history of this prophetic song since its adoption by the medieval Church and on its surviving tradition in certain areas of Catalan culture – a fabulous example of cultural (...) continuity. (shrink)