Abstract

In his Analytical Philosophy of History, published in 1965, Arthur Danto made a path‐breaking, but largely unacknowledged contribution to the philosophy of action. Davidson's sentences are to the effect that someone has done something: their verbs bear the past tense and the perfective aspect. Danto's sentences are to the effect that someone is doing something: their verbs bear the present tense and the imperfective aspect. Danto's sentences are central to the language of action. Philosophers of action who unreflectively employ the abstract sentences assume that their meaning takes care of itself, and as such fail to have in mind the concrete sentences in which their meaning consists. The fantasy of basic action is the fantasy of action without acting.