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Full Idea
Once you lose the agent from an account of action it stops being an account of action at all.
Gist of Idea
If you don't mention an agent, you aren't talking about action
Source
Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 4 'Agent')
Book Ref
Stout,Rowland: 'Action' [Acumen 2005], p.63
A Reaction
[he refers to Richard Taylor 1966] This could be correct without implying that agents offer a unique mode of causation. The concept of 'agent' is reducible.
| 5211 | An action is voluntary if the limb movements originate in the agent [Aristotle] |
| 5221 | Deliberation ends when the starting-point of an action is traced back to the dominant part of the self [Aristotle] |
| 20051 | Reid said that agent causation is a unique type of causation [Reid, by Stout,R] |
| 20054 | There has to be a brain event which is not caused by another event, but by the agent [Chisholm] |
| 20015 | Freedom of action needs the agent to identify with their reason for acting [Frankfurt, by Wilson/Schpall] |
| 5488 | Regularity theories of causation cannot give an account of human agency [Ellis] |
| 20052 | If you don't mention an agent, you aren't talking about action [Stout,R] |
| 20050 | Most philosophers see causation as by an event or state in the agent, rather than the whole agent [Stout,R] |