Journal of the Philosophy of History 1 (1):10-24 (2007)
Authors |
|
Abstract |
Davidson's seminal essay "Actions, Reasons and Causes" brought about a paradigm shift in the theory of action. Before Davidson the consensus was that the fundamental task of a theory of action was to elucidate the concept of action and event explanation. The debate concerning the nature of action explanation thus took place primarily in the philosophy of history and social science and was focussed on purely methodological issues. After Davidson it has been assumed that the fundamental challenge for the theory of action is to answer not the conceptual question "what does it mean to explain something as an action?", but a metaphysical question, namely, "how is causal over-determination by the mental and the physical possible?". I argue that the two main considerations Davidson provides for construing the question posed by the action/event distinction in metaphysical rather than conceptual terms are inconclusive and that much is to be learned from the conceptual approach championed by Collingwood and Dray in the context of their philosophy of history.
|
Keywords | Reasons, causes, causalism, anti-causalism, Davidson, Collingwood |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
DOI | 10.1163/187226307X176758 |
Options |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Download options
References found in this work BETA
How Is Weakness of the Will Possible?Donald Davidson - 1969 - In Joel Feinberg (ed.), Moral Concepts. Oxford University Press.
Citations of this work BETA
Gadamer and Collingwood on Temporal Distance and Understanding.Chinatsu Kobayashi & Mathieu Marion - 2011 - History and Theory 50 (4):81-103.
The Philosopher and the Grapes: On Descriptive Metaphysics and Why It Is Not 'Sour Metaphysics'.Giuseppina D'Oro - 2013 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 21 (4):586 - 599.
Similar books and articles
Two Kinds of Purposive Action.Stephen Butterfill - 2001 - European Journal of Philosophy 9 (2):141–165.
Reasons and Purposes: Human Rationality and the Teleological Explanation of Action - By G.F. Schueler.Duncan Macintosh - 2007 - Philosophical Books 48 (1):86-88.
Essays on Davidson: Actions and Events.Bruce Vermazen & Merrill B. Hintikka (eds.) - 1985 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Reasons for Action.Pamela Hieronymi - 2011 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 111 (3pt3):407-427.
Reason, Action and the Will: The Fall and Rise of Causalism.Stewart Candlish & Nic Damnjanovic - unknown
Problems in the Explanation of Action.Donald Davidson - 1987 - In Philip Pettit, Richard Sylvan & J. Norman (eds.), Metaphysics and Morality. Blackwell.
Reasons, Causes, and Action Explanation.Mark Risjord - 2005 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 35 (3):294-306.
Analytics
Added to PP index
2009-01-28
Total views
259 ( #41,307 of 2,498,759 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
36 ( #24,201 of 2,498,759 )
2009-01-28
Total views
259 ( #41,307 of 2,498,759 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
36 ( #24,201 of 2,498,759 )
How can I increase my downloads?
Downloads