more on this theme | more from this thinker
Full Idea
Davidson has urged that events are individuated by the causal relations which they bear to one another, in accordance with the principle that events are identical just in case they have the same causes and effects. But the principle is viciously circular.
Gist of Idea
The claim that events are individuated by their causal relations to other events is circular
Source
comment on Donald Davidson (The Individuation of Events [1969]) by E.J. Lowe - The Possibility of Metaphysics 7.4
Book Ref
Lowe,E.J.: 'The Possibility of Metaphysics' [OUP 2001], p.163
A Reaction
You wouldn't want to identify a person just by their relationships, even though those will certainly be unique. Generally it is what I am (right now) naming as the Functional Fallacy: believing that specifying the function of x explains x.
| 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] |