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Events That Are Causings: A Response to LoweAuthor(s): Jennifer HornsbySource: Analysis, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Jun., 1983), pp. 141-142Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Committee

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REPLY TO HORNSBY ON ACTIONS 141

rise, and we want to refer to the events which caused his arm's

rising, we must be prepared to refer at least once to a very differentsort of event from the sort of event we could refer to in the case ofan inanimate agent such as a billiard ball. In the billiard ball examplejust cited, we could refer to B's moving as an event which causedC's moving; and B's moving is a purely physical event. Now, analo-

gously in the arm-raising example, we may expect there to be eventswhich we could refer to as having caused A's arm to rise, and someof these events will again be purely physical, e.g., the contracting ofA's muscles: but we must also expect at least one such event, sayA's 0-ing, to be a mental event of some sort (which is not, however,to deny that it may also be physical, only to deny that it is purelyphysical, like B's moving or the contracting of A's muscles). (What

0-ing mightbe is a

largeissue I

cannot go intohere:

some wouldsay that it is 'willing', and I am not in principle opposed to this

answer.) We can see, then, that what differentiates a human agent'scausing something from an inanimate agent's causing somethingneed not be supposed to reside in any difference in the sense of

'cause', but only in the fact that human agents, unlike inanimate

agents, have minds and that mental events are causally efficacious.But if this is correct, there is no escaping the absurdity of sayingsuch things as 'A's causing x caused x'. (For an admirable clarifica-tion of some of these matters, see Kent Bach, 'Actions are not

Events', Mind LXXXIX, January 1980.)

Universityof Durham,50 Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HN

? E. J. LOWE1983

EVENTS THAT ARE CAUSINGS: A RESPONSE TO LOWE

By JENNIFERHORNSBY

r would be strange if I were to say 'My writing this is caused byLowe's causing my writing this'. This would be strange because

(for one thing) there are so many more informative and more

elegant sentences which convey a similar message and which I coulduse instead.

The uninformative and inelegant sentence is from the pattern of

(*) A's causing x caused x.

And Lowe and I agree that it is often possible to deduce an instanceof (*) from premises that I should accept. But Lowe continues tofind (*) 'distinctly odd' where 'A' stands for a human agent; andinstances of (*) in which 'A' stands for something inanimate he nowcalls 'manifestly absurd'.

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142 ANALYSIS

Lowe's original reason for deriving (*) himself was that he hopedto provide a reductio: he intimated that he had cast in doubt my

assumption that actions are events (see ANALYSIS 1.3, June 1981,

p. 129). Now that he has encouraged us to see the matter in a more

general light (see above), I think he has made it clear that if wemust reject the assumption that actions are events, then so also

must we reject the claim that ball B's hitting ball C is an event.

The reader who shares Lowe's view of (*) may want to deny that

B's hitting C is an event, or he may think that Lowe's reasoning was

flawed. For my part, I am convinced that, however strange it mightbe to use them, many instances of (*) can be got from unexception-able premises by truth-preserving steps.

CorpusChristi

College,Oxford ?JENNIFER

HORNSBY1983

ACTIONS, ATTEMPTS AND INTERNAL EVENTS

By MICHAEL SMITH

OVER the past few years several people have argued that all

tryings are internal events.1 They claim to show that if, for

instance, an agent tries to raise his arm, then whether he raises his

arm or not, the rising of his arm is no part of his attempt. His attemptis rather an internal event which, if he does raise his arm, causes his

arm to rise. The time has come to review such arguments. For, as

Jennifer Hornsby has recently pointed out, if all attempts to act are

internal events, and all successful attempts are identical with the

actions the attempted performance of which was successful, then all

actions are internalevents. If such

argumentscan show that no

attempt to raise an arm has arm-rising as a part, then no arm-raisinghas arm-rising as a part either. Her argument is valid, so those of

us who think that her conclusion is false must reject one of her

premises.2 I reject the first. My assumption will be that the argumentsgiven for the first premise have a common form. The contention I

wish to defend here is that that form is fallacious.

1 See for instance, Hugh McCann's'Is Raising One's Arm a Basic Action?' In Journal of

Philosophy May 1972; David Armstrong's 'Acting and Trying' in Philosophical Papers May1973; Brian O'Shaughnessy's 'Trying (as the Mental "Pineal Gland")' in Journal of Phil-

osophy July 1973; and, more recently, and more tentatively, Jennifer Hornsby's 'ArmRaising and Arm Rising' in Philosophy January 1980, and Chapter Three of Actions

(Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980).2 Amongst those who think that Hornsby's conclusion is false is E. J. Lowe: see his

"'All Actions Occur Inside the Body"' in Analysis 41.3, June 1981. But Lowe's

arguments against Hornsby are, I think, fallacious. See her 'Reply to Lowe on Actions' in

Analysis 42.3,June 1982.

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