Philosophy of action: Davidson, von Wright, and the debate over causation

Abstract

Philosophy of Action was an active field in the decade under review. Renewed interest in this area among so-called analytic philosophers was due largely to Wittgenstein [1] and Ryle [2], and their influence dominated the work done in this area in the fifties and early sixties by such philosophers as Anscombe [3], Peters [4], Winch [5], Melden [6], and Kenny [7], all of whom opposed a causal theory of human action, attacking not only behavioristic and physiological accounts of the causation of action but traditional philosophical theories which saw volitions, motives, beliefs, etc., as causes of action. Although allowing that it may not always be wrong to speak of the causation of action, they rejected the claim that Humean or nomic causation — causation understood as a lawful relation between distinct events — is essential to the understanding or explanation of intentional action. While there were important differences among these philosophers, they were unanimous in rejecting a causal theory of human action, and this rejection was overwhelmingly dominant as the decade began.