Black Jack -- on New Year's Day, 1886

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A good, elaborate, example by Grice to conterbalance Davidson's simplistic, naive, account of actions-qua-events (in Davidson's totally minimalistic and scientistic picture) concerns:


"On New Year's Day, 1886, the notorious pirate Black Jack perished. The Governor of Malta hanged him, thereby ridding the Mediterranean of its most dangerous seafarer, and humiliating the Sultan, who was Black Jack's master."

In Davidson's account, the problem is that:

"it becomes impossible to decide whether it is Black Jack or the Sultan who has been hanged, or who has been humiliated."

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This is the last straw for Grice who goes on to revise all the authors that Davidson had criticised in his attempt to be witty: Reichenbach and von Wright.