The philosophy of action defines itself by reference to a pair of canonical divisions. First, among events, a distinction is drawn between that which is a "mere event" and that which is an "action." Then, a second distinction is drawn among actions, between that which is action in some qualified way---because it is unintentional, or unconscious, or unfree, or what have you---and that which is action unqualifiedly.
"The standard approach," as Anscombe called it, is to take for granted the genus EVENT, and to hunt for the differentia of action; or to take for granted the genus ACTION, and to hunt for that of unqualified action. The negative aim of the dissertation is to argue against the standard approach; the positive aim is to develop an alternative.
I first distinguish three different forms of generality---forms that are associated with the traditional ideas of an accident, a category and an essence. I then ask: What kind of generality is exemplified by each of the two canonical divisions? The standard approach is viable only if both divisions exemplify what I call "accidental generality." In fact, neither does.
The division of action into qualified and unqualified action is an example of what I call "essential generality." I argue that, as in all such cases, the question, "What is unqualified action?" reduces into the question, "What is action?"
The other division is an example of what I call "categorial generality." The concept "action" refers to a category of a distinctively practical kind: an agent must think that what she is doing falls under this category, if, in fact, it does fall under it. Then any attempt to describe a differentia must be circular: sooner or later it must refer the agent's thought; and the agent's thought must in turn make reference to that which it needed to explain.
On the positive account defended here, an action is a certain sort of temporally-ordered system of ends and means. The claim is that the agent herself must think of what she is doing as being such a system---if, indeed, it is one.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-06032008-122655 |
| Date | 29 October 2008 |
| Creators | Ford, Anton |
| Contributors | Kieran Setiya, Stephen Engstrom, John McDowell, Michael Thompson, Sebastian Roedl |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-06032008-122655/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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