more from Donald Davidson

Single Idea 15002

[catalogued under 7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / d. Commitment of theories]

Full Idea

Davidson argued that the best linguistic theory of adverbial modification assigns truth-conditions quantifying over events; thus we must embrace an ontology of events.

Gist of Idea

If the best theory of adverbs refers to events, then our ontology should include events

Source

report of Donald Davidson (The Logical Form of Action Sentences [1967]) by Theodore Sider - Writing the Book of the World 07.8

Book Reference

Sider,Theodore: 'Writing the Book of the World' [OUP 2011], p.122


A Reaction

Sider is critical and I agree. This is just the sort of linguistic manoeuvre that gets philosophy a bad name. As Yablo remarks, we have a terrible tendency to want to thingify everything.