Essays on Actions and Events

Donald Davidson has prepared a new edition of his classic 1980 collection of Essays on Actions and Events, including two additional essays. This seminal work on the nature of human action features influential discussions of such topics as freedom to act; weakness of the will; the logical form of talk about actions, intentions, and causality; the logic of practical reasoning; Hume's theory of the indirect passions; and the nature and limits of decision theory.
'a classic in its field.' P. F. Strawson

Discusses topics such as: freedom to act; weakness of the will; the logical form of talk about actions, intentions, and causality; the logic of practical reasoning; Hume's theory of the indirect passions; and the nature and limits of decision theory. This book argues for an ontology which includes events along with persons and other objects.

Review from previous edition 'it must be said that this is one of the most impressive works of analytical philosophy to appear for a good many years... The positions adopted are argued for with an extraordinarily sustained seriousness and determination... the work will become, and deserves to become, a classic in its field.'

Autorentext

Donald Davidson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. Donald Davidson is Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. He was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard, completing his Ph.D. in classical philosophy after serving in the US Navy from 1942 to 1945. Before coming to Berkeley in 1981, he was Professor at Stanford, Princeton, Rockefeller, and the University of Chicago. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.

Inhalt

• Provenance of the Essays and Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Intention and Action
• 2: How is Weakness of the Will Possible? (1969)
• 3: Agency (1971)
• 4: Freedom to Act (1973)
• 5: Intending (1978)
• Event and Cause
• Criticism, Comment, and Defence
• 7: Causal Relations (1967)
• 8: The Individuation of Events (1969)
• 9: Events as Particulars (1970)
• 10: Eternal vs. Ephemeral Events (1971)
• Philosophy of Psychology
• Appendix: Emeroses by Other Names (1966)
• 12: Psychology as Philosophy (1974)
• Comments and Replies
• 13: The Material Mind (1973)
• 14: Hempel on Explaining Action (1976)
• 15: Hume's Cognitive Theory of Pride (1976)
• Appendix A: Adverbs of Action (1985)
• Appendix B: Reply to Quine on Events (1985)
• Index, Bibliography