Wednesday, May 5, 2010

"Have you stopped beating your wife?" (Grice, PPQ, vol. 67, p. 18)

---

ANOTHER DRAWBACK, as he calls them, of Davidson's simplistic account of actions and events (or actions QUA events) is the inability to address the topic of phi-wise, or phi-ly. The adverb:

He sneezed very violently.
He beat his wife very violently.

According to Davidson these are comparable. Grice agrees, but they are comparable as what what Aristotle, Kant, and Grice (and I) have as 'modi' -- the category of 'modus'.

So, a beating is violent QUA beating.
A sneeze is violent QUA sneezing.

Davidson disegards this.

"Violent" is NOT ambiguous, but the 'violent qua beating' is what is missing in Davidson's approach. More generally, Davidson fails to see the essential guise of 'z' qua kicking, in the formalisation of "Shem kicked Shaun".

No comments:

Post a Comment