References
- Davis , Lawrence . 1979 . A Theory of Action Englewood Cliffs , NJ : Prentice-Hall . Cf. 6.
- 1980 . Essays on Actions and Events , Davidson has developed this account in a number of articles including ‘Actions, Reasons, and Causes,’ ‘Agency,’ ‘Freedom to Act,’ and ‘Intending,’ all reprinted in (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 3–19, 43–61, 63–81, and 83–102, respectively. G.E.M. Anscombe advocates a similar account in Intention, 2nd ed. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1963) and ‘Under a Description,’ Noûs 13 (1979) 219–33; but my exposition concentrates on Davidson's account.
- ‘Agency,’ 49–50
- Ibid.
- 1980 . Actions London : Routledge & Kegan Paul . I am indebted here to Jennifer Hornsby, 22–3.
- ‘Freedom to Act,’ 79
- ‘Actions, Reasons, and Causes,’ 3–4
- ‘Intending,’ 85
- Essays ‘The Logical Form of Action Sentences,’ in
- 1979 . ‘Intensionality and Identity in Human Action and Philosophical Method,’ . Noûs , 13 : 235 – 60 . For a proposal for handling the causal and by-relation properties in this way see Hector-Neri Castaneda
- Theory 28 – 38 . Anscombe, ‘Under a Description’ and Davis, take this line.
- 1975 . Thinking and Doing Dordrecht : D. Reidel . Castaneda may have something like this in mind when he claims that action individuation is largely a verbal issue in and ‘Intensionality.’
- Davidson . “ The Individuation of Events, in ” . In Essays 179 See also ‘Causal Relations,’ ‘Events as Particulars,’ and ‘Eternal Vs. Ephemeral Events,’ in Essays, 149–62, 181–7, and 189–203, respectively.
- Davis . 1984 . Theory and Hornsby, Actions. There are differences between the accounts. Hornsby, for example, eschews the label ‘volitions’ and sticks exclusively to ‘tryings.’ She denies that these are in themselves actions, though she is willing to call them ‘doings.’ My exposition draws mainly from Davis, but I think that Hornsby's account has basically the same difficulties (and advantages). For more on volitional accounts see Myles Brand's extended discussion in Acting and Intending (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press.
- Davis . Theory 20
- Goldman . 1970 . “ For the development of Kim's theory of events see Kim, ‘Events and their Descriptions: Some Considerations’ ” . In A Theory of Human Action Edited by: Rescher , Nicholas . Princeton : Princeton University Press . Essays in Honor of Carl G. Hemple (Dordrecht: D. Reidel 1969); ‘Causation, Nomic Subsumption and the Concept of Event,’ Journal of Philosophy 70 (1973) 217–36; and ‘Events as Property Exemplifications,’ in Brand and Walton, eds., Action Theory (Dordrecht: D. Reidel 1976).
- The exemplifier account tends not to make a sharp distinction between events and states of affairs. Far from this being a problem, it seems to me that this works very nicely for a theory of action. Actions involve both changes and states. For example, a volition is typically a condition that persists for some (perhaps very short) period of time. It must if it is to exert the kind of feedback control that is supposed to be characteristic of volitions. Also, not all actions are changes. Standing at attention is an action, but it is more appropriately thought of as a state or condition rather than a change. A notion of event that is broad enough to include both changes and states seems to prove its merit here.
- 1979 . ‘Action, Causation, and Unity,’ . Noûs , 13 : 261 – 70 . Goldman subsequently seems to have given up reductionist claims. See
- See Castaneda's effective attack on level generation in Tntensionality, 246–51.
- Thalberg . 1977 . Perception, Emotion & Action New Haven : Yale University Press . and Thomson, Acts and Other Events (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1977)
- Perception 107 – 8 . Thalberg is strangely hesitant about saying that the prior actions are literally parts of the further actions. He says rather that the relation is like that of an ear lobe to the ear or of Greater Russia to the U.S.S.R. I am afraid that I don't understand the distinction Thalberg has in mind, so I shall present the account as making (as I think it should) the straightforward part claim.
- 1978 . ‘The Irreducibility of Events,’ . Analysis , 38 A referee suggested to me that one may claim that x is reducible to y without making any identity claim. One may simply mean that x is fully explainable in terms of y. Now I am concerned here mainly with denying the identity claim. However, I think it is also doubtful whether the exemplifier account fully explains events in terms of other things. It is doubtful that the concept of exemplification is distinct from the concept of event. An exemplification is a kind of happening, something that takes place. (See Thalberg, 1 [] 7–8.) The exemplifier account doesn't explain the notion of event in terms of other things; rather it tells us something important about the nature of events in revealing the underlying structure that is common to all events.
- 1981 . The complex event theory is developed and defended in detail in Costa, ‘Seeing and Other Complex Events,’ Ph.D. Dissertation, The Ohio State University
- Searle , John . 1983 . “ draws a similar distinction between a prior intention and the ‘intention in action,’ ” . In Intentionality 84 Cambridge : Cambridge University Press .
- 1984 . ‘Two Faces of Intention,’ . Philosophical Review , 93 For an example of such a case see Michael Bratman, 381–3. My discussion here was influenced by Bratman's article.
- A There is a serious question about whether the content of an intention (or volition, for that matter) is the same as that for a corresponding prediction, say, that I shall do on the occurrence of X. Clearly the intention state differs from the prediction state; but is this because of a difference in content or merely a difference in psychological attitude toward the same content? Philosophers who maintain that there is a difference in content include Castaneda (Thinking) and Searle (Intentionality). I shall remain neutral on this question here, and my characterization of the content of intentions and volitions is not meant to exclude the possibility that something other than straightforward propositional content is involved.
- Intentionality My notion of b-volitions is indebted to Searle's discussion of ‘background abilities,’ ch. 5.
- Many of the ideas expressed in this paper were developed and refined in a 1984 NEH Summer Seminar on Human Action. I am indebted to Hector Castaneda and the other participants in that seminar for their encouragement and for many helpful criticisms and suggestions. I would like to thank in particular Castaneda, Jim Kelly, Frank McGuinley, and Joe Losco for their detailed comments on an ancestor of this paper. I have also benefitted greatly from the advice of the referees of this journal and my colleagues Barry Loewer and Ferdy Schoeman.