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Individuating Actions: The Fine—Grained Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Hugh J. McCann
Hugh J. McCann*
Affiliation:
Texas A & M University
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Extract

When Booth moved his finger, thereby firing a gun, thereby killing Lincoln, did he perform three discrete actions, or were there relations of identity or inclusion among them? Most treatments of this problem have tended to assume there is but one sort of entity properly to be called an action, and hence that one answer to this question must be established to the exclusion of all others. And the favored answer has been that Booth's actions are not discrete, or indeed even overlapping, but identical. It is possible, however, to adopt a more conciliatory spirit, in which a place is sought for talk of discrete or fine-grained actions in cases like this, as well as for entities of the coarser sort most have favored.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , December 1983 , pp. 493 - 512
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1983

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References

1 This view is most closely associated with Davidson, Donald. See especially ‘The Logical Form of Action Sentences,’ in Rescher, Nicholas ed., The Logic of Decision and Action (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press 1967), 81–95Google Scholar; and 'Agency,’ in Binkley, Robert Bronaugh, Richard and Marras, Ausonio eds., Agent, Action, and Reason (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1971), 1–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Bennett, Jonathan ‘Shooting, Killing and Dying,’ Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 2 (1972-73) 315-24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and more recently, Hornsby, Jennifer Actions (Boston, MA: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1980)Google Scholar, Chapter I.

2 See Kim, Jaegwon ‘Events as Property Exemplifications,’ in Brand, Myles and Walton, Douglas eds., Action Theory (Boston, MA: D. Reidel 1976), 159-77CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and especially the writings of Castaneda, Hector-Neri on the subject, including Thinking and Doing (Boston, MA: D. Reidel 1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Chapter 12; and ‘lntensionality and Identity in Human Action and Philosophical Method,’ Nous, 13 (1979) 235-60. I have argued for such an approach in ‘Nominals, Facts, and Two Conceptions of Events,’ Philosophical Studies, 35 (1979) 129-49.

3 Kim, 160-1; also Alvin Goldman, I. A Theory of Human Action (Englewood Cliffs, Nj: Prentice-Hall 1970), 10Google Scholar. It is possible to employ differing individuational bases, yet divide actions with as much fineness. See, for example, Brand, Myles ‘Identity Conditions for Events,’ American Philosophical Quarterly, 14 (1977) 329-37Google Scholar.

4 This was Kim's early view, Kim, 160.

5 Achinstein, Peter The Identity of Properties,’ American Philosophical Quarterly, 11 (1974) 257-75Google Scholar, 262-3

6 The approach to be described is closely analogous to that of Clark, Romane 'Concerning the Logic of Predicate Modifiers,’ Nous, 4 (1970) 311-36Google Scholar.

7 This is not the only device, but it is by far the most common, and keeping to it helps avoid property designating expressions like the act Booth performed, which can refer to a property without signifying or expressing it. See Goldman, 12-3.

8 For a discussion of determination, see Prior, Arthur N. ‘Determinables, Determinates and Determinants,’ I and II, Mind, 58 (1949) 1–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar and 178-94.

9 Compare Clark's ‘core predicates,’ Clark, 320.

10 Kim, 170; Goldman, 39

11 Compare Clark, 323.

12 The classic example of this is Goldman, 2-6. There have been a number of criticisms of Goldman's arguments, including Castañeda, ‘Intensionality and Identity in Human Action and Philosophical Method,’ 239-44. See also Richards, Norvin ‘E Pluribus Unum: A Defense of Davidson's Individuation of Action,' Philosophical Studies, 29 (1976) 191-8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 ‘lntensionality and Identity in Human Action and Philosophical Method,’ 236

14 Ibid., 237

15 See Vendler, Zeno Linguistics in Philosophy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Chapter 5, to which I am indebted for a number of points to come.

16 For treatments of individual accidents, see G.F. Stout, ‘The Nature of Universals and Propositions,’ reprinted in Landesman, Charles ed., The Problem of Universals (New York, NY: Basic Books 1971). 153-66Google Scholar; the papers by Stout and G.E. Moore from the symposium: ‘Are the Characteristics of Particular Things Universal or Particular?', also reprinted in Landesman, 167-83; and Wolterstorff, Nicholas On Universals (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press 1970)Google Scholar. especially Chapter 6.

17 Many authors take this view of individual accidents as a matter of course. See especially Wolterstorff, 134.

18 See especially Armstrong, David M. Universals and Scientific Realism, vol. 1 (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press 1978)Google Scholar, Chapter 8.

19 Vendler, 130-1

20 Thomson, Judith Jarvis ‘Individuating Actions,’ The Journal of Philosophy, 68 (1971) ,774-81CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 778; Kim, 169

21 Davidson, ‘The Logical Form of Action Sentences,’ 82

22 Vendler, 137

23 Davidson appears to have something like this in mind. The suggestion is developed by Gilbert Harman in ‘Logical Form,’ in Davidson, and Harman, eds., The Logic of Grammar (Encino, CA: Dickenson 1975) 289–307,Google Scholar 294-5.

24 I am especially indebted to Hector-Neri Castañeda, Robert Audi, Irving Thalberg, Myles Brand, lawrence Davis and Robert Burch for discussions of these matters, as well as to the editors of The Canadian Journal of Philosophy for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.