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Full Idea
Davidson's criterion for the identity of events is a mistake, because we cannot know the causes and effects of an event until we know what that event comprises.
Gist of Idea
You can't identify events by causes and effects, as the event needs to be known first
Source
comment on Donald Davidson (The Individuation of Events [1969]) by Michael Dummett - Frege philosophy of mathematics Ch.10
Book Ref
Dummett,Michael: 'Frege: philosophy of mathematics' [Duckworth 1991], p.113
A Reaction
How many attempts by analytical philosophers to give necessary and sufficient conditions for things seem to founder in this way. Their predecessor is at the end of 'Theaetetus'; you have to know what the sun is before you can define it.
| 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] |