Challenging The Process View of Action

Manuscrito 47 (1):2024-0028 (2024)
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Abstract

There is an ongoing debate in the ontology of action about whether actions are processes, events, relations, or sui generis entities. This paper focuses on the process view, the view that actions are processes. I challenge it in two ways. First, I argue that some actions are not processes because their performance need not be associated with or accompanied by a process. Second, I critically discuss three main arguments that have been advanced to support the process view. My view, the pluralist view, is that process-theorists are right to hold that certain actions are processes, but wrong to maintain that every action is a process: activities are processes, acts are not, and some acts are composed of a process whereas others are not.

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Robin Timothée Bianchi
Université de Neuchâtel

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References found in this work

Reasons Without Rationalism.Kieran Setiya - 2007 - Princeton University Press.
The logical form of action sentences.Donald Davidson - 1966 - In Nicholas Rescher, The Logic of Decision and Action. University of Pittsburgh Press. pp. 81--95.
Omissions: Agency, Metaphysics, and Responsibility.Randolph K. Clarke - 2014 - New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
The Ontology of Mind: Events, Processes, and States.Helen Steward - 1997 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Parts Study in Ontology: A Study in Ontology.Peter M. Simons - 1987 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.

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