Abstract
This chapter has two sections, both of which develop some of the consequences of one-particularism. The first section is about the possibility that some regress, vicious or otherwise, arises on the conjunction of one-particularism and the left-to-right inference of (PT), since I accept both of those conjuncts.
The second question is a sceptical question. Could there be a possible world in which no other agents, minded like ourselves, ever act, either intentionally or unintentionally, although, for all the events that would have been intrinsic or extrinsic to their actions had they acted, there are intrinsically qualitatively identical mere events that occur anyway? If there were such a possible world, how would a person know whether the world that he is in is that world or some other world in which the other agents really do act?
Do I solve the sceptical question about knowledge of the actions of others that I introduce? No. I tentatively outline (but do not commit myself to) a ‘disjunctivist’ suggestion for addressing the sceptical question. The discussion on scepticism also allows me to apply (CTT) from Chap. 4 and to demonstrate how it works in thinking about this question about others’ actions. It also allows me to make some points of (I believe) some interest about the epistemology of action.
‘Expressions which are in no way composite signify … action and affection…. ‘to lance’, ‘to cauterize’, action; ‘to be lanced’, ‘to be cauterized’, [are terms indicating] affection’
(Aristotle, ‘De Categoriae’, 4).
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Notes
- 1.
Examples of this view include: Bishop, John 1983, ‘Agent-causation’, Mind, Vol. XCII, 61–79; Hornsby, Jennifer 1980, Action, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London; Alvarez, Maria 1999, ‘Actions and Events: Some Semantical Considerations’, Ratio n.s. XII, September, 213–239; O’Connor, Timothy 2000, Persons & Causes, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
- 2.
G.E.M. Anscombe, Intention, is perhaps the best-known example of this genre.
- 3.
I’m sure this criticism is not original to me, and that I have read it somewhere, but I cannot now find where I first came across it. Apologies to the original but unattributed source.
- 4.
Perhaps the fullest statement of that view is by McDowell (2013). Hats off to Adrian Haddock for trying to convince me that perceptual disjunctivism succeeds in dealing with skepticism. He thinks it does and I’m unsure. For me, the jury is still out.
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Ruben, DH. (2018). Regress Issues and Action Scepticism. In: The Metaphysics of Action. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90347-7_8
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