Abstract
In various of my writings, both in Philosophical Studies and elsewhere, I have argued that an account of trying sentences is available that does not require quantification over alleged attempts or tryings. In particular, adverbial modification in such sentences can be dealt with, without quantification over any such particulars. In ‘Attempts’, Jonathan D. Payton (Payton, 2021) has sought to dispute my claim. In this paper, I consider his claims and reply to them. I believe that my account withstands such scrutiny. In what follows, I refer to my book as ‘MA’, in giving page numbers to guide the reader. ‘Payton’ always refers to ‘Payton 2021’.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
I accept the Ubiquity of Trying Thesis, so if someone sees A kissing B, it follows that that person sees A trying to kiss B. See my MA, 155–157, and passim.
Hereafter, ‘LHS’ and ‘RHS’ stands for left-hand side and right-hand side, respectively.
One might see that someone is trying by observing certain non-actional clues (for instance, knowing that the person is the subject of an experiment, that he has been told to try, and that he is wrinkling his face in a way which is typical of someone expending effort) and from those clues infer that he is trying. Seeing that someone is trying seems different from seeing someone trying. But still the point remains: there must be something to be seen, and if all of those non-actional clues, as well as any action, are missing in a case of naked trying, it is simply false that one can see the person trying. I have not emended (3) or (3*) to cover this possibility, in order to keep them relatively simple, but such an emendation should be straightforward.
Suppose the patient is hooked up to a noisy scanner. Doesn’t a noisy event thereby occur when the patient tries to lift his arm? So has the noisy event, but no action, made it true that the patient tried to lift his arm noisily? It seems to me that if the scanner is noisy when the patient tries to lift his arm, it is not true that the patient tried to lift his arm noisily. That situation would be best described as ‘there was a noise when the patient tried to lift his arm’. If it is true that the patient lifted or tried to lift his arm noisily, that tells us something about either the patient or what the patient did, but not about any ambient noise.
An exception is Hornsby 2011, 263–264.
Steward, 2018.
In the book, I cited two examples of not wholly dissimilar analyses, where a philosophical account of something is offered in terms of subjunctive conditionals: (1) the phenomenalist reduction of physical object sentences to sets of sentences about actual and possible sense data; (2) the compatibilist account of x’s choosing to f freely as x’s doing something other than f if x had chosen to do something other than f (MA, 121–123). There are other such examples as well: the behaviourist account of mental states, and the counterfactual account of causation, both in terms of subjunctive conditionals. I am assuming that these analyses are intended to be metaphysical and not just making an epistemological point. The intention behind these analyses is to say what the phenomenon in question is. I don’t suggest that all of these examples are equally compelling; the idea was only to draw attention to other philosophical analyses of what appear to be categorical claims, in terms of subjunctive conditionals. I mention these other examples only in the spirit of making connections with other metaphysical issues that may help the reader; of course, one could still argue that all of these examples have put the cart before the horse.
See Milne 2005, 2013.
References
Anscombe, G. E. M. (1965). ‘The Intentionality of Sensation’, in R.J. Butler, Analytic Philosophy second series, Blackwell, 1965
Bishop, J. (1989). Natural Agency. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press
Butler, R. J. (1965). Analytic Philosophy, second series. Oxford: Blackwell
Dretske, F. (1969). Seeing and Knowing. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London
Gandevia, S. C. (1982). ‘The Perception of Motor Commands or Effort During Muscular Paralysis’, Brain, 105, 151 – 59
Hornsby, J. (2011). ‘Actions in Their Circumstances’, in Essays on Anscombe’s Intentions, eds. Anton Ford, Jennifer Hornsby, and Frederick Stoutland, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass
James, W. (1950). Principles of Psychology (2 vol.). New York: Dover Publications
Jeannerod, M. (1995). ‘Mental Imagery in the Motor Context’, Neuropsychologica, Vol 33, no. 11, 419 – 32
Levin, B. (1993). English Verb Classes and Alternations. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press
Milne, P. (2005). ‘Not Every Truth Has a Truth-maker’. Analysis, 65, 221–224
Payton, J. (2021). ‘Attempts’. Philosophical Studies, 179(2), 363–382
Preston, J. and Daniel Wegner (2008). ‘Elbow Grease: When Action Feels Like Work’. In E. Morsella, J. Bargh, & P. Gollwitzer (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Human Action. 569 – 86: Oxford University Press
Ruben, D. H. (2018). The Metaphysics of Action: Trying, Doing, Causing. Palgrave Macmillan
Ruben, D. H. (2016). ‘A Conditional Theory of Trying’. Philosophical Studies, 173(1), 271–287
Ruben, D. H. (2015). ‘The Physical Action Theory of Trying’. Methode, 4(6), 1–19
Ruben, D. H. (2013). ‘Trying in Some Way’. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 91(4), 719–733
Ruben, D. H. (2003). Action and Its Explanation. New York: Oxford University Press
Steward, H., & 18 Dec. (2018). ‘Review of The Metaphysics of Action’. in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Ruben, DH. Reply to ‘attempts’: a non-davidsonian account of trying sentences. Philos Stud 179, 3817–3830 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-022-01870-x
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-022-01870-x