Exemplification, Causation, and Individuation

Journal of Philosophical Research 40:285-291 (2015)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

There was once a lively debate concerning the individuation of events and whether, for example, “Brutus’s stabbing of Caesar” was the same action as “Brutus’s killing of Caesar.” More recently, I attempted to reinvigorate this debate by suggesting a new reason for distinguishing these two as separate actions: the inherent indeterminacy of Caesar’s death in “Brutus’s stabbing of Caesar” but not in “Brutus’s killing of Caesar” and further proposed that the debate was significant because it has intimate connections to theories of causation. Katarzyna Paprzycka has carefully and thoughtfully shown that my original argument fails to cogently demonstrate the fine-grained theory of events because one cannot compellingly show that the determinacy with respect to Caesar’s death in “Brutus’s killing of Caesar” would transfer to “Brutus’s stabbing of Caesar.” However, the intuition behind the original argument may still survive as it is perhaps possible to argue directly that the best explanation for how there is an indeterminacy in “Brutus’s stabbing of Caesar” but not in “Brutus’s killing of Caesar” is that they are distinct events. In that case, there is still a “new” argument for a fine-grained theory of action individuation.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Exemplification, Then and Now.Fred Wilson - 2013 - Axiomathes 23 (2):269-289.
Individuation and causation in psychology.Tyler Burge - 1989 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 70 (4):303-22.
Events, Facts and Causation.Bo R. Meinertsen - 2000 - Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 76:145-182.
Samples as symbols.Mark Textor - 2008 - Ratio 21 (3):344-359.
Exemplification and Universal Realism.Erwin Tegtmeier - 2013 - Axiomathes 23 (2):261-267.
Ryle's Paradox and the Concept of Exemplification.Arnold Cusmariu - 1980 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 10 (2):65-71.

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-11-13

Downloads
27 (#506,960)

6 months
1 (#1,042,085)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references