Negative actions : events, absences, and the metaphysics of agency

The Resource Negative actions : events, absences, and the metaphysics of agency

Label

Negative actions : events, absences, and the metaphysics of agency

Title remainder

events, absences, and the metaphysics of agency

Statement of responsibility

Jonathan D. Payton

Language

eng

Summary

"Negative actions (intentional omissions, refrainments, etc.) seem to be genuine actions. The standard metaphysical theories of action are event-based: they treat actions as events of a special kind. But it seems that many (and perhaps all) negative actions are, not events, but absences thereof. In this book, I provide a comprehensive treatment of this problem and its solution. I trace the appearance that negative actions are mere absences to the widely-assumed view that negative action sentences (sentences which describe an agent as omitting, refraining, etc.) are negative existentials, reporting the non-occurrence of an event of a certain kind. I argue, on the contrary, that such sentences report the occurrence of an event, not the absence of one. Moreover, I show how these events can be identified with ordinary, positive events of the sort we should already have in our ontology. In developing these views, I provide a comprehensive picture of the metaphysics of negative actions, the nature of our thought and talk about them, and their place in a theory of action and agency"--

Assigning source

Provided by publisher

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

128/.4

Index

index present

LC call number

B105.A35

LC item number

P35 2021

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography

Context

Context of Negative actions : events, absences, and the metaphysics of agency

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