Abstract
This paper presents a typology of human actions, based on Aristotle’s kinesis–energeia dichotomy and on a formal elaboration (with some refinement) of the Vendler–Kenny classificatory schemes for action types (or action verbs). The types introduced are defined throughout by inferential criteria, in terms of what here are referred to as “modal-temporal expressions” (‘MT-terms’). Examples of familiar categories analysed in this way are production and maintenance, but the procedure is meant to offer a basis for defining various other commonsense categories. Among the more theoretical categories introduced are “Aristotelian projects”, i.e. actions defined in terms of Aristotle’s conceptions of movement/change, as well as “abstract projects”, in which the agent ensures that something changes from not being a fact to being a fact, and “conditional agency”, which involves actions that are to be performed when/if certain conditions come to be fulfilled. A category like “starting an action” is itself inferentially defined here in MT-terms, and so, inter alia, are proceeding with, finishing, stopping and interrupting an action. There is also a demonstration of how actions of one type may be converted into those of other types, where this is a matter of the way they are “seen” or described. There is also an implication to the effect that some of these distinctions may be useful for formulating certain critical insights regarding modern life.
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Notes
My translation, partly based on Ross (1972), and Tredennick (1989).
In the classical definition the definiens takes the form of a (material) conjunction ‘Ax iff Bx · Cx’. In the inferential definition it takes the form of a (strict) implication: ‘Ax iff \( {\text{Px}} \rightarrow {\text{Qx}}^{\prime}\).
It may be argued that the kinesis–energeia dichotomy, when specifically applied to the domain of human action, corresponds to Aristotle’s dichotomy of praxis (an action that has its end, i.e. telos, in itself) and poiesis (an action that has its end or telos outside of itself).
The letter ‘P’ has been chosen for its association with, for example, ‘practice’ or ‘performance’.
As for the task of telling somebody what someone is doing, it may still be a point to give further specifications beyond those included in the directive. The agent may act according to the directive ‘Kiss Anna!’ or just ‘Kiss her!’, but in a report it may be essential to specify that it is his wife he is kissing.
Not all directives [imperatives], on the other hand, are directives for [particular] actions. (i) “Know yourself!” may be a good instance of an exception. Yet, whether it is taken to be advice about the acquisition of knowledge or about living one’s life in a certain manner, you may succeed or fail at it, and this is the crucial feature of actions in the sense of the word that I want to make use of. (ii) General directives need not be omitted from the list because of their generality, since in particular situations they are “transformed” into particular directives. “Always look in both directions before you cross a street!” becomes operative as: “Look in both directions before you cross the—i.e. this—street!” (iii) A directive like “Win the race!” subsumes an action that by its logical form—the successful completion of something—presupposes a previous action. This means, moreover, that the agent can only act under that directive if he understands it as being implied by another directive—namely “Compete in the race!”. But you are, in principle, only competing in the race if you are trying to win it, so the directive in question (“Win the race!”) is redundant. The imperative is the grammatical mode of many speech acts. The utterance “Come to me next Friday!” may be an invitation, an order, a request, or an instance of giving advice, and there is certainly a difference between invitations, orders, requests, and instances of giving advice. But there is no difference as regards following the imperative in respect of its being an invitation, an order, a request, or an instance of giving advice.
The present participle ‘being performed’ is here used as part of the main text or meta-language of this analysis, and should not be confused with the present participle used as part of the technical language of the formulae below.
One might feel tempted to ask how a process could begin or end, when there is no such thing, respectively, as either a first or a final moment. One answer might be that there is no first moment, but later there was and, similarly, there is no last moment, but later there was. The first raindrop is not a raindrop. It becomes a raindrop—and the first one—when other drops have fallen too: enough of them to constitute rainy weather. A temporal logic with phenomenological ambitions must account for this paradox, i.e. demonstrate why there is no paradox.
The ‘→’ indicates strict implication, and the validity of the inferences, accordingly, depend on the meaning of ‘P’; i.e. they are conceptual necessities.
Vendler, to be sure, does not talk about “activities”, “accomplishments” and “achievements”, but about “activity verbs”, “accomplishment verbs”, and “achievement verbs”. And he makes no use of inferential procedures in his definitions.
Ryle (1963) argues that an Aristotelian energeia is, in fact, an achievement. I will refrain from entering into that discussion at present.
The ‘iff’ is my adaptation. It is not clear (to me) whether Kenny thinks that the inferences in (1″) and (2″) are sufficient to define the action types involved.
Vendler develops a fourth category besides activity, accomplishment and achievement: state. There is no room for that category in the present analysis. This is not because states are, so to speak, “passive” and thus irrelevant to the philosophy of action. The reason is rather that states are more easily—and, from an intuitive point of view, still adequately—accounted for within the category of activity (and its derivatives). Taking an example from Vendler himself, ruling is either an activity (“Britannia rules the waves”), or it is not an action at all. (So a sentence like ‘George W. Bush rules the U.S.’ might simply be read as “George W. Bush is the constitutional head of the U.S.”).
Alternatively, the agency may belong to the realm of physiotherapy, rehabilitation etc. I owe this observation to Johanna Seibt.
Actually when we say that the train “is arriving” we mean that it is “about to arrive”: i.e. it is in the very last stages of its journey and will arrive very soon—and, in the formal sense, have arrived, too.
When you enter the train at the station you have necessarily also walked—or moved in some other way—to the station (unless you have lived your whole life there!). And when you swallow the last mouthful of the cake, the cake has necessarily also been baked (though not necessarily by you!). So lots of achievements imply that this or that accomplishment has been performed. But in this respect they depend—all of them, except the case of completion—on the specific content of the actions spoken of, i.e. the specific values of ‘Ph’ and ‘Pc’.
You may also find something by just “coming across” or “stumbling over” it. Here the “finding” isn’t an action at all, but an event.
The proposed first-and-second-order structure of directives will be discussed in Sect. 10.
See Sect. 10.
According to merely temporal criteria the concept of existence at stake here has the temporal structure of an activity: a moment in which the object O exists is a moment in which it has already existed, and existence does not occur, so to speak, ‘at the click of a finger’: i.e. when O exists it is existing. As I have already stated, my discussion of the possibility of applying the MT-grammar to (certain concepts of) “existence” will have to be saved for another occasion.
Maybe it is, after all, not that simple. The very concept of an object’s numerical identity, where that object only exists potentially, is awkward. The coffee was served, the ingredients and the procedures for making it were all the same, but it all happened 10 minutes later and was done by Peter instead of Anna. The same coffee?
A stone, tree, lion, mountain, lake, cloud, or nose are, according to any criteria I have ever encountered amongst philosophers, objects, albeit in a more or less flesh-and-blood sense, so to speak. But insofar as we limit the class of productive actions to those performed by human agents, rather than God, we may leave natural objects out of account. Yet a particular plant of the genus Triticum aestivum is a natural object, whereas when cultivated as bread-wheat, and hence as raw material for wheat-bread, it becomes a product. A hundred pigs are a hundred natural objects. But on the pig breeder’s farm they are animals to be slaughtered. And having been slaughtered they are—have become—products, making pig-breeding a productive activity.
If we are willing to admit a dynamic reading of the concept of existence without further argument, then we might say that the “keep-going” of the activity means the “on-going” of the existence of the object.
It may also be regarded as embedded in an open sequence of similar accomplishments, and so in a single huge activity: “I took over the farm from my father, as he did from his father, and you take over from me, as your son will take over from you!”.
Socrates, we said, has changed location from Athens at t1 to Corinth at t2. And this remains true when he later returns to Athens. But notice, there is a lower limit as regards how briefly he may be located in Corinth if ‘being located’ and not, for example, merely ‘passing through’ is to count as the proper expression here. There is, in general, a lower limit as regards how briefly the final state may last if it is to be a final state and thus constitute the completion of a change. If Tom is on a pub crawl a week after he had declared that he “had stopped drinking”, then he didn’t stop drinking. If three years have passed, then he did stop—this much is true for all eternity—even though he has started again.
Notice that when you are specifying the way in which the change is carried through you are in fact specifying the result as well. A room that has been vacuum-cleaned is “clean” [or cleaned] in a different sense from one whose floors have been scrubbed or one in which both projects have been carried through.
Production and destruction are also changes in terms of contradictories. But they are not abstract projects since the contradictory terms are not derived from contraries.
Nor is the analysis of actions as abstract projects unusual in modern philosophy. See, for instance, Horty and Belnap (1995).
These days there are traces of a revolt against the [social] dominance of Aristotelian projects. One example may be the introduction (or revival) of “organic food production”, linked, for example, to animal-welfare concerns and the like. We want the narrative back—particularly one we may feel good about!
All three basic types of actions may be prompted. But insofar as the logical relationship between the action and the prompting event is the same in all cases we may keep to the analysis of the prompted accomplishment.
References
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Aristotle (1989 (1933)) Metaphysics, transl by Tredennick H. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts
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Acknowledgements
I’m profoundly indebted to Dr. Carl Humphries for what was meant to be a philosopher’s proof-reading, but turned out to include many relevant questions and good critical points.
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Kühl, C.E. Kinesis and Energeia—and What Follows. Outline of a Typology of Human Actions. Axiomathes 18, 303–338 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-008-9034-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-008-9034-3