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Action and Generality View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by D-Scholarship@Pitt ACTION AND GENERALITY by Anton Ford B.A., Philosophy, Harvard University, 1999 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Department of Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2008 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY This dissertation was presented by Anton Ford It was defended on June 17, 2008 and approved by Michael Thompson, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy John McDowell, M.A., University Professor of Philosophy Stephen Engstrom, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy Kieran Setiya, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Philosophy Sebastian R¨odl,Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy Dissertation Director: Michael Thompson, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy ii Copyright c by Anton Ford 2008 iii ACTION AND GENERALITY Anton Ford, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2008 The philosophy of action defines itself by reference to a pair of canonical divisions. First, among events, a distinction is drawn between that which is a \mere event" and that which is an \action." Then, a second distinction is drawn among actions, between that which is action in some qualified way|because it is unintentional, or unconscious, or unfree, or what have you|and that which is action unqualifiedly. \The standard approach," as Anscombe called it, is to take for granted the genus event, and to hunt for the differentia of action; or to take for granted the genus action, and to hunt for that of unqualified action. The negative aim of the dissertation is to argue against the standard approach; the positive aim is to develop an alternative. I first distinguish three different forms of generality|forms that are associated with the traditional ideas of an accident, a category and an essence. I then ask: What kind of generality is exemplified by each of the two canonical divisions? The standard approach is viable only if both divisions exemplify what I call \accidental generality." In fact, neither does. The division of action into qualified and unqualified action is an example of what I call \essential generality." I argue that, as in all such cases, the question, \What is unqualified action?" reduces into the question, \What is action?" The other division is an example of what I call \categorial generality." The concept \action" refers to a category of a distinctively practical kind: an agent must iv think that what she is doing falls under this category, if, in fact, it does fall under it. Then any attempt to describe a differentia must be circular: sooner or later it must refer the agent's thought; and the agent's thought must in turn make reference to that which it needed to explain. On the positive account defended here, an action is a certain sort of temporally- ordered system of ends and means. The claim is that the agent herself must think of what she is doing as being such a system|if, indeed, it is one. v TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.0 ACTION AND THE METHOD OF DIVISION ..........1 2.0 THREE FORMS OF GENERALITY ................. 15 2.1 Introduction............................... 15 2.2 Accidental Generality.......................... 16 2.3 Categorial Generality.......................... 18 2.3.1 The Categorial Species and its Genus.............. 18 2.3.2 The Irreducibility of this Form................. 24 2.4 Essential Generality........................... 34 2.4.1 The Essential Species and its Genus.............. 34 2.4.2 The Irreducibility of this Form................. 36 2.4.2.1 Positive, Negative and Doubly-negative........ 36 2.4.2.2 The Alienated Species.................. 38 2.4.2.3 The Alien Species.................... 41 2.4.2.4 The Essential Species as Unalien and Unalienated.. 46 2.5 Comparison of the Forms........................ 48 2.6 The Uncritical Assumption of the Standard Approach........ 50 3.0 ACTION UNQUALIFIED ........................ 52 3.1 Introduction............................... 52 3.2 The Standard Approach to Unqualified Action............ 53 3.3 Unqualified Action as an Essential Species.............. 57 vi 3.3.1 The Qualifications of Action................... 57 3.3.2 Unintentional Action as an Alien Species............ 62 3.3.3 Defective Action as an Alienated Species............ 65 3.3.3.1 Internal Defect...................... 65 3.3.3.2 External Defect..................... 66 3.4 Ideal Action Theory........................... 66 4.0 ACTION SIMPLICITER ......................... 71 4.1 Introduction............................... 71 4.2 Action as a Practical Category..................... 72 4.3 The Humean Circle........................... 74 4.3.1 The Circle Described....................... 74 4.3.2 The Circle Expanded....................... 78 4.4 In Defense of the Expanded Circle................... 81 4.4.1 Are Promising and Marrying Exceptional?........... 81 4.4.2 What is it to Think that one is Acting?............ 85 4.4.3 Is the \Naturally Unintelligible" Unintelligible?........ 87 5.0 WHAT IS DONE .............................. 89 5.1 Introduction............................... 89 5.2 Another Approach........................... 91 5.3 What, Why and How?......................... 102 5.4 The Purposive Unity of an Action................... 106 5.5 The Temporal Unity of an Action................... 108 5.6 Whether an Action's Purposive Unity is its Temporal Unity.... 112 5.7 The Parts and Phases of an Action.................. 119 5.7.1 That a Phase is not a Part................... 119 5.7.2 That a Phase is not a \Stretch of Time"............ 124 5.7.3 That Imperfection is a Missing Phase.............. 126 5.8 Purposive Parts............................. 129 vii 5.8.1 Part and Whole......................... 129 5.8.2 Part and Partner......................... 132 5.8.3 The Ineliminability of Parts................... 135 5.9 Purposive Species............................ 139 5.9.1 Species and Genus........................ 139 5.9.2 Object and Instrument Specification.............. 142 5.9.3 The Mutual Dependence of Parts and Species......... 146 5.9.4 The Ineliminability of Species.................. 147 5.10 The Form of an Action......................... 150 6.0 CONCLUDING REMARKS ON PRACTICAL THOUGHT .. 152 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................ 158 viii LIST OF FIGURES 1.......................................1 2....................................... 37 3....................................... 48 4....................................... 49 5....................................... 52 6....................................... 61 7....................................... 71 8....................................... 109 9....................................... 111 10....................................... 119 11....................................... 122 12....................................... 127 13....................................... 141 ix 1.0 ACTION AND THE METHOD OF DIVISION It is customary in the philosophy of action to proceed by a method of division; and two divisions have always seemed especially important. The first of these is a broad division within the class of things that happen. Some of the things that happen are the fruit of the human capacity to act; others plainly are not. Philosophers therefore commonly distinguish between that which is a \mere event" and that which is an \action." The second of the two canonical divisions is within the category of action itself. Some actions, though they do involve the capacity to act, and therefore count among its revelations, nevertheless involve it only indirectly or imperfectly. A further distinction is therefore drawn, between that which is action in some qualified way| because it is unintentional, or idle, or addictive, or subconscious, or weak-willed, or compelled by force, or what have you|and that which is action unqualifiedly, or action par excellence. Event Mere Event Action Qualified Action Unqualified Action Figure 1 That both of these distinctions are legitimately drawn, and rightly placed at the center of the discipline, is perhaps beyond dispute. But in view of these distinctions, 1 the question does arise: What is the task of the philosopher of action? One might suppose that a philosopher of action had primarily to account for the difference between an action and a mere event, or, again, the difference between qualified and unqualified action. And since both of the customary divisions are ex- haustive, cutting what they divide into parts without remainder, this would amount to explaining how actions differ from events in general, and how unqualified actions differ from actions in general. And so, like the Stranger from Elea, one might suppose that the philosopher's task was to hound down the differentiae: to say what an event must be, over and above being an event, in order to be an action, or to say what an action must be, over and above being an action, in order to be an action in the full and proper sense. Some such thought is implicit in a question that was famously posed by Wittgen- stein: \What is left over if I subtract the fact that my arm goes up from the fact that I raise my arm?"1 Wittgenstein's question appears to be concerned with the first of the two now familiar divisions, but it is easily redeployed in connection with the second: What is left over if I subtract the fact that I raise my arm from the fact that I raise it intentionally, or rationally, or freely, or . ? Of course, the idea of subtraction entails the idea of a corresponding addition. Wittgenstein's question therefore assumes a cer-
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