The need of a clear ontological distinction between objects and events seems to be largely supported by linguistic evidence, and relies on a solid philosophical tradition which splits the domain of particulars into endurants and perdurants. Yet the logical formalization of such intuitive distinction is still a challenge, and alternative ontological proposals like the so-called 4D approach seem to offer a simpler way out.
In this talk I will defend the motivations for this distinction, and I will discuss some formalization issues. I will also introduce a further category of entities, qualities, and I will analyse their nature and their role with respect to the endurants/perdurants distinction. Qualities are referred by linguistic expressions such as the color of this rose or the length of my talk, and it is not clear whether they are endurants or perdurants, or, rather, can help understanding their differences.
I will base my presentation on some recent work we have done at the Laboratory for Applied Ontology in the framework of the WonderWeb project: DOLCE (a Descriptive Ontology for Linguistic and Cognitive Engineering), where a preliminary formalization of endurants, perdurants, qualities, and their relationships is presented.
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