more on this theme | more from this thinker
Full Idea
Davidson claims that events can only be individuated causally.
Gist of Idea
Events can only be individuated causally
Source
report of Donald Davidson (The Individuation of Events [1969], 3) by Jonathan Schaffer - Causation and Laws of Nature 3
Book Ref
'Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics', ed/tr. Sider/Hawthorne/Zimmerman [Blackwell 2008], p.87
A Reaction
Schaffer rejects this in favour of individuating events by their spatiotemporal locations and intrinsic natures (which seem to be property instantiations, a la Kim). Schaffer was a pupil of David Lewis.
18914 | Davidson controversially proposed to quantify over events [Davidson, by Engelbretsen] |
9843 | You can't identify events by causes and effects, as the event needs to be known first [Dummett on Davidson] |
8278 | The claim that events are individuated by their causal relations to other events is circular [Lowe on Davidson] |
14602 | Events can only be individuated causally [Davidson, by Schaffer,J] |
14004 | We need events for action statements, causal statements, explanation, mind-and-body, and adverbs [Davidson, by Bourne] |