Agents and their actions

Philosophy

Volumn 73, Issue 284, 1998, Pages 219-245

  Alvarez, Maria ^a   Hyman, John ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF READING   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0007421907     PISSN: 00318191     EISSN: 1469817X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0031819198000199     Document Type: Review

References (42)

1. The dissenting voices include G. H. von Wright, Norm and Action (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963)
2. K. Bach, 'Actions are not events', Mind 89 (1980)
3. R. Stoecker, 'Reasons, Actions and their Relationship', in Stoecker (ed.), Reflecting Davidson (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1993)
4. S. Guttenplan (ed.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1994), 121
5. Cf. J. Kim and E. Sosa (eds), A Companion to Metaphysics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1995), 3
6. G. E. M. Anscombe, 'Causality and Determination', repr. in Anscombe, Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Mind (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981), 136. Since our concern is with the question of whether actions are events, we shall also ignore the question of whether states, states of affairs or facts are causes
7. D. Davidson, 'The Logical Form of Action Sentences: Criticism, Comment and Defence', in Davidson, Essays on Actions and Events (Oxford University Press, 1980), 128
8. R. Taylor, Action and Purpose (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966), 115
9. Cf. T. Reid, Essays on the Active Powers of Man (Edinburgh: John Bell, 1788), I.v.50: 'the notion of efficiency .... is a relation between the cause and the effect, similar to that which is between us and our voluntary actions.'
10. R. M. Chisholm, Person and Object (London: Allen & Unwin, 1976)
11. Chisholm, 'The Agent as Cause', in M. Brand and D. Walton (eds), Action Theory (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1976)
12. Cf. D. Davidson, 'Agency', repr. in Essays on Actions and Events, 52
13. Davidson, 'Problems in the Explanation of Action', in P. Pettit, R. Silvan and J. Norman (eds), Metaphysics and Morality: Essays in honour of J. J. C. Smart (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), 36
14. J. Hornsby, Actions (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980), 101
15. D. W. D. Owen, 'Actions and Bodily Movements: Another Move', Analysis 40 (1980), 33
16. and Chisholm appears to commit a similar fallacy in 'Human Freedom and the Self', repr. in G. Watson (ed.), Free Will (Oxford University Press, 1982), 30, as follows: whenever a man does something A, then (by 'immanent causation') he makes a cerebral event happen, and this cerebral event (by 'transeunt causation') makes A happen. In its first appearance 'A' seems to signify an action, for example, a movement (transitive) of a part of the man's body; whereas in its second appearance, 'A' seems to signify the action's result, for example, a movement (intransitive) of a part of the man's body
17. Bishop and O'Connor also reject the doctrine that agents cause their actions; but they retain the doctrine that actions are events. J. Bishop, 'Agent Causation', Mind 92 (1983), 77
18. T. O'Connor, 'Agent Causation', in O'Connor (ed.), Agents, Causes and Events (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 181
19. See, for example, Davidson, 'The Logical Form of Action Sentences: Criticism, Comment and Defence', loc. cit., 147
20. An argument by Hornsby is open to similar objections: see Hornsby, Actions, 3-4 & 133-35. These matters are examined in detail in M. Alvarez, 'Actions and Events: Some Semantical Considerations', forthcoming, where it is argued that the events we need to quantify over in order to formalize action sentences are the results of actions, and not actions themselves
21. Davidson, 'The Logical Form of Action Sentences', repr. in Essays on Actions and Events, 113
22. Davidson, 'The Logical Form of Action Sentences: Criticism, Comment and Defence', loc. cit., 128. Davidson writes there: 'I see no objection to saying that agents are causes'; but we prefer to circumscribe the use of the noun 'cause' in a manner which accords more closely with idiomatic English. Since this excludes using the noun 'cause' in every case of agency, we prefer the the less common, but unimpeachable, 'causer'
23. J. D. Velleman, 'What Happens when Someone Acts?', Mind 101 (1992), 467
24. see also 'The Logical Form of Action Sentences: Criticism, Comment and Defence', loc. cit., 124 & 128
25. For an interesting discussion of this and related matters, see the exchange between Lowe and Hornsby published in Analysis: E. J. Lowe, 'All Actions Occur inside the Body', 41 (1981)
26. Hornsby, 'Reply to Lowe on Actions', 42 (1982)
27. Lowe, 'Reply to Hornsby on Actions', 43 (1983)
28. Hornsby, 'Events that are Causings: A Response to Lowe', 43 (1983)
29. Lowe, 'A Note on a Response of Hornsby's', 44 (1984)
30. Hornsby, Actions, 103
31. Hornsby, Simple Mindedness (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997), 232 n. 1 and 94
32. P. F. Strawson, 'Causation and Explanation', in B. Vermazen and M. B. Hintikka (eds.), Essays on Davidson: Actions and Events (Oxford University Press, 1985), 122
33. Davidson, 'Agency', loc. cit., 56ff. Danto argues that they are related as cause and effect, while Austin and Ginet argue that they are related as whole and part. See A. Danto, 'Basic Actions', repr. in A. White (ed.), The Philosophy of Action (Oxford University Press, 1968), 50f
34. J. L. Austin, 'A Plea for Excuses', repr. in Austin, Philosophical Papers (Oxford University Press, 1961), 149
35. Ginet, On Action (Cambridge University Press, 1990), ch. 3
36. R. Harré and E. H. Madden, Causal Powers (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975), 105
37. An interesting letter on this subject from Stephen Kobrin appears under the heading 'Taxation and Location', in The Economist, 21-27 June, 1997. Kobrin asks: 'Does an Indian programmer's repair of software on a computer in London (via a satellite link) take place in Bangalore or London? The answer [he says] is that the question is no longer relevant. The very idea of geographical jurisdiction may therefore no longer be meaningful.' And he notes that 'Property is becoming increasingly intangible and consumption difficult to locate precisely (even if consumers are not).'
38. A. Donagan, Choice. The Essential Element in Human Action (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987), 167ff
39. Cf. Reid, op. cit., I.v.44: 'Power to produce any effect implies power not to produce it.'
40. Strawson, op. cit., 123 makes essentially the same point with characteristic subtlety, arguing that there may be a grain of psychological truth in the thought that some kind of anthropomorphism is, at least sometimes, involved in the attribution of causal powers to inanimate agents, but that this is 'a matter of no [theoretical] consequence'
41. As Kenny remarks, it is not always easy to identify genuine agency in the inanimate case, and it is often difficult to identify the exact agent. But he adds: 'Wherever we can talk of substances in nature, wherever we can talk of natural kinds, we can talk also of natural agency and natural powers.' A. J. P. Kenny, Will, Freedom and Power (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975), 46
42. See also A. R. White, Grounds of Liability (Oxford University Press, 1985), 25f