Abstract
In this paper, I intend to introduce what I think is a novel proposal in the metaphysics of action: one-particularism. In order to do so, I must first explain two ideas: a concept in the semantics of English that many philosophers of action take to be of great importance in action theory, causative alternation; and the idea of an intrinsic event. By attempting to understand the role that intrinsic events are meant to play in action theory, I then introduce my proposal. Getting clear on what is an intrinsic event is a key, I think, to producing a viable theory of action, or, to be more precise, part of such a general theory, since it is limited to actions whose descriptions employ gerunds or perfect nominals formed from ergative verbs. I conclude by replying to two arguments that would be advanced against my proposal, both found in Alvin Goldman’s A Theory of Action.
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Notes
If the sentences on the LHS and RHS of (CA) are in imperfective aspect, this is correct. P’s openingt of the door is indeed the truth-maker for ‘P is (or was) openingt the door’, and the door’s openingi is the truth-maker for ‘the door is (or was) openingi’. But suppose the sentences on the LHS and RHS are in perfective aspect: ‘P openedt the door’ and ‘the door openedi’. Unlike the imperfective forms, both assume success. In the case of verbs subject to the paradox of imperfectivity (for verbs subject to the paradox, ‘P was Vt-ing’ does not entail ‘P Vt-ed’), their nominal gerundial forms do not assume success. Making P’s openingt of the door and the door’s openingi the truth-makers for the sentences in perfective aspect does not take into account the variation in aspect between the sentences in perfective aspect (success assumed) and their nominal gerundial truth-makers (success not assumed). The ‘fix’ is to impose a further condition of success on the truth-makers. The problem can also arise in case there is a derived nominal on the RHS (e.g., ‘there was a closure of the door’), depending on whether the derived nominal is taken in the process or product sense (Clark and Welsh 1962, 153–154).
Martin and Schäfer (2014, 210).
Both Levin (1993) and Smith (1972) provide a good account of English verbs in general and in particular an account of the ones for which causative alternation yields appropriate pairs. There are certainly some verbs that lack any transitive form: ‘arrive’, ‘blossom’, ‘die’, ‘run’, and ‘wilt’. More importantly, there are many transitive action verbs that have no intransitive alternate (in English): ‘dance’, ‘push’, ‘slice’, ‘read’, ‘go’, and ‘eat’. ‘The waiter cleared the table’ has no intransitive alternate, since ‘the table was clear’ uses an adjective and not an intransitive verb form, and ‘the table was cleared’ is only the passive of ‘clear’ and not an intransitive (Hovav and Levin 2012, 7–8). Similarly, ‘he read the book’, ‘he poisoned the president’, ‘he pushed the door’, ‘he injured the soldier’, and ‘he danced the rhumba’ do not have as their intransitive alternates: ‘The book was read’, ‘the president was poisoned’, ‘the door was pushed’, ‘the soldier was injured’, or ‘the rhumba was danced’. The latter are merely the verbs in their passive voice, entailed by ‘the book was read by someone’, ‘the president was poisoned by someone’, ‘the door was pushed by someone’, ‘the soldier was injured by someone’, and ‘the rhumba was danced by someone’. ‘John holds the candle’ is acceptable, but ‘The candle holds’ is ungrammatical, so that ‘holds’ has no intransitive alternate.
Ruben (2003, Chapter 166–171).
Ibid., Chapter 4 and Ruben (1995).
Compare (CA) to this entailment:
(CB): FROM ‘surface s is red’ TO: ‘surface s is coloured’.
(CB) does not of course speak of two distinct kinds of colouring for s. The conclusion of (CB) is merely less informative than the premise, which is why the premise entails the conclusion but the conclusion does not entail the premise. COLOURED is the determinable; Red is a determinate of that determinable. Saying that a surface is coloured is just to say less about its colour status than to say that it is red, or any other determinate colour. So even if ‘coloured’ is a red-free description of a surface, it does not follow that the surface itself is red-free. ‘The colour of the surface’ refers to its redness, without that being obvious from the description itself.
The one-particular view I defend here replaces the erroneous view I took about this issue in Ruben (2003, 174–184). I hereby recant.
I agree with the following observation by Jennifer Hornsby (private communication): ‘Suppose I close the door…Assume that I push the door until it is closed. Consider the very event that ‘the door’s closing’ denotes in this example. Would that event exist if someone else [or, ‘no one’-my addition] had closed the door? If one is inclined to say No, then that would suggest that the door’s closing (when it is me who closes it) IS the door’s being closed by me.’ I think that this remark expresses the same intuition about the relation between an action and its intrinsic event that drives one-particularism.
That is a view I can’t defend here, but it is widely held. There is a famous case introduced into the literature by Jerrold Katz, the Wild West Story (Katz 1970, 253, fn. 31), slightly enhanced and altered in my retelling). The local gunsmith (call him ‘Smithy’) faultily repairs a sheriff’s gun. Soon thereafter, the sheriff, who is the fastest gun in town and who always wins gunfights, has a gunfight with the slowest gunslinger in town, but his gun jams, as a result of the faulty repair, so that he is killed by the slow gunslinger. Katz’ claim is that Smithy caused the sheriff’s death but did not kill him, and I agree.
Davidson 1967 (1980), ‘The Logical Form of Action Sentences’.
Kenny (1963, 151–170).
There is an attempt to extend the analysis to non-ergative cases in Hyman (2015), Action, Knowledge, & Will, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 35. Its failure is a story too long to tell here.
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Ruben, DH. One-particularism in the theory of action. Philos Stud 175, 2677–2694 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-017-0977-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-017-0977-3