Essays on Actions and Events (Philosophical Essays of Donald Davidson): Philosophical Essays Volume 1 (The Philosophical Essays of Donald Davidson (5 Volumes)) - Softcover

Davidson, Donald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199246270 ISBN 13: 9780199246274

Publisher: Clarendon Press, 2001

Synopsis

Including two new essays, this remarkable volume is an updated edition of Davidson's classic Essays on Actions and Events (1980). A superb work on the nature of human action, it features influential discussions of numerous topics. These include the freedom to act; weakness of the will; the logical form of talk about actions, intentions, and causality; the logic of practical reasoning; Hume's theory of the indirect passions; and the nature and limits of decision theory.

About this title

Review:

Review from other book by this author`...these intriguing views are ingeniously argued and fruitfully provocative.'Philosophy.

Review from previous edition 'it must be said that this is one of the most impressive works of analytical philosophy to appear for a good many years.' (Peter Strawson, Times Literary Supplement)

Review from previous edition 'it must be said that this is one of the most impressive works of analytical philosophy to appear for a good many years... The positions adopted are argued for with an extraordinarily sustained seriousness and determination... the work will become, and deserves to become, a classic in its field.' (Peter Strawson, Times Literary Supplement)

Synopsis:

Donald Davidson has prepared a new edition of his classic 1980 collection of Essays on Actions and Events, including two additional essays. In this seminal investigation of the nature of human action, Davidson argues for an ontology which includes events along with persons and other objects. Certain events are identified and explained as actions when they are viewed as caused and rationalized by reasons; these same events, when described in physical, biological, or physiological terms, may be explained by appeal to natural laws. The mental and the physical thus constitute irreducibly discrete ways of explaining and understanding events and their causal relations. Among the topics discussed are: freedom to act; weakness of the will; the logical form of talk about actions, intentions, and causality; the logic of practical reasoning; Hume's theory of the indirect passions; and the nature and limits of decision theory. The introduction, cross-references, and appendices emphasize the relations between the essays and explain how Davidson's views have developed.

About this edition

• Publisher: Clarendon Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0199246270
• ISBN 13: 9780199246274
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 352