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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.
| 6402 | In 1927, Russell analysed force and matter in terms of events [Russell, by Grayling] |
| 7949 | Varied descriptions of an event will explain varied behaviour relating to it [Davidson, by Macdonald,C] |
| 8348 | If we don't assume that events exist, we cannot make sense of our common talk [Davidson] |
| 9843 | You can't identify events by causes and effects, as the event needs to be known first [Dummett 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] |
| 15268 | Humeans construct their objects from events, but we construct events from objects [Harré/Madden] |
| 8308 | Events are ontologically indispensable for singular causal explanations [Lowe] |
| 4221 | Maybe modern physics requires an event-ontology, rather than a thing-ontology [Lowe] |
| 12839 | Relativity has an ontology of things and events, not on space-time diagrams [Simons] |
| 20467 | Quantum mechanics describes the world entirely as events [Rovelli] |