Abstract
I introduce the idea that an act of trying is identical to some physical action. Identity requires (at least) one-one correspondence: for each token trying act, there would have be one and only one token physical act (of course, namely itself) with which it is identical. There are two obstacles to the physical action theory of trying that are the opposite of one another: first, the availability of too many particular physical action tokens, and second, the lack of any. My discussion of the too-many-tokens problem leads me into a consideration of what I call the ‘mereological strategy’. I argue that that strategy fails but I leave it open whether or not some non-mereological parallel strategy might succeed. Finally, I look at the lack-of-any-physical-tokens problem, sometimes called ‘naked trying’. I sharpen the argument from the premiss that there are naked tryings to the conclusion that the physical identity theory fails. I believe that it is a scientifically established fact that there are such cases (it’s not just a matter about one’s ‘philosophical intuitions’ about such cases) and I examine two attempts to circumvent the naked trying argument and I conclude that they are unsuccessful.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Olivier Massin’s particularist view of trying is more complicated: the trying is identified with an action done with a certain intention, i.e., Julie’s trying to open the door=her pushing [of] the door with the intention of opening it (Massin 2013, and in private correspondence).
- 3.
These issues are covered in Gozanno, Simone and Christopher Hill, editors, 2012.
- 4.
Throughout the book, I call a theory of act individuation austere if it finds the multiplicity in the descriptions, so that ‘his improving of the inhabitants’ lives’, ‘his stopping of the flood’, ‘his closing of the sluice’, ‘his turning of the valve’, and ‘his bending of his finger’ are all descriptions of a single action. A theory of act individuation is prolific if it finds the multiplicity in the actions themselves rather than in the descriptions. There are degrees of prolificacy: the most prolific theory holds that the above list names five distinct actions. A less prolific theory might hold that the list names less than five but more than one action.
- 5.
Why the same result does not follow for substances, or for certain events and actions, is a long story, assumed to be true but not to be told here at any length. Briefly, two strategies are these: properties are (1) either time-indexed or world-indexed when ascribed for instance to a substance, (2) or ascribed not to the whole substance but to one of its temporal parts.
- 6.
Peter Simons, Parts: A Study in Ontology, OUP, 2000, who disagrees.
- 7.
Simon Evnine (2016) ‘The times at which they are performed, therefore, cannot in general be essential to the identity of actions.’
- 8.
William James describes the cases of the patients of Dr. Landry and Professor Strümpell. See William James (1950), 490–492.
- 9.
See for example some of the literature, and quotations, in the note below this one.
- 10.
Here are several recent major discussions of effort or exertion in which it is simply assumed that trying or attempting always also occurs and that it is not to be identified with exertion or effort:
-
1.
‘Exertion is accompanied by a sensation of strain and labour, a feeling that intensifies the harder a person tries’, ‘even if capacity is completely extinguished so that efferent activity is not possible (e.g., in paralysis), then no effort is felt even when intentionally trying to move’, ‘When people are trying to solve problems together, effort experiences can be the basis for unintended plagiarism’ (Jesse Preston and Daniel Wegner (2008), quotes from 570, 571, 578 respectively).
-
2.
Similarly in a second patient…futile attempts to abduct or extend the fingers were described as follows: ‘My fingers felt normal but I could not move them. I knew what I was trying to do…but I could not feel any effort in it at all’, ‘To determine whether sensations of effort could arise when the limbs were not only paralysed but also insentient four patients with spinal transections were interviewed. These patients were aware of sensations of effort when first attempting to move their paralysed limbs…when specifically asked to try and move their limbs, patients said that the feeling of effort or heaviness remained’, ‘…during the stage of complete paralysis of upper motor neuron type patients were aware of their failed attempts to move. But they did not feel the sense of effort…’ ‘Two patients, who suddenly became hemiplegic, without sensory symptoms, noted that attempts to move when movement first returned were accompanied by distinct sensations of effort or heaviness’ (S. C. Gandevia 1982, quotes from 154, 155, 157).
-
3.
‘Subjects with experimental paralysis of one limb experience strong sensations of effort when they attempt to move that limb…The same hypothesis would account for permanence of sensations of effort in all cases of distal paralysis, where corticofugal pathways are not altered’ (M. Jeannerod 1995, 1429).
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1.
- 11.
See Sarah Paul (2009) for a good discussion of the options for understanding intention.
- 12.
See for example Thor Grünbaum (2008); Richard Taylor (1973), 82–85, ‘The Paralyzed Man’; Timothy Cleveland (1997), chapter 6; George Wilson (1989), 151–167. Irving Thalberg is excessive in his judgment: ‘Vesey … rebutted several versions of it [that there is naked trying] … Richard Taylor demolished an enticing reconstruction of it…Yet it comes back to haunt us…’ (Thalberg 1983, 137). Indeed, so it does. And here I am, to haunt again.
- 13.
There is a view that even belief has a phenomenology, that there is something it is like to believe that p. See David Pitt (2011).
- 14.
That ubiquity thesis must be something like this, where ‘F’ ranges over physical actions types and ‘x’ ranges over physical action tokens: (TUT) (Nec) (x) (F) (if P does a token action x of type F intentionally→ P tries to F).
- 15.
If he succeeds in F-ing in spite of his subjective certainty that he can’t, it isn’t the case that he has F-ed intentionally. (I defend this view more fully in Chap. 4).
- 16.
Wilson begs the question when he argues for the proper use of ‘performs’ in connection with muscular contractions, which he says ‘are part of the exercise of my normal control over my body’ (p. 164), thereby conflating the idea of things an agent controls with the idea of causes of his control. The expression ‘are part of’ could be taken in either sense.
- 17.
See also Michael Bratman (2006), 5–19.
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Ruben, DH. (2018). The Physical Action Theory of Trying. In: The Metaphysics of Action. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90347-7_2
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