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Why Reasons May Not Be Causes
Author(s) -
TANNEY JULIA
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
mind and language
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.905
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1468-0017
pISSN - 0268-1064
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0017.1995.tb00007.x
Subject(s) - causation , intuition , epistemology , relation (database) , explication , action (physics) , philosophy , computer science , physics , quantum mechanics , database
This paper considers Davidson's (1963) arguments for construing reasons as causes and attempts to show that he has failed to provide positive reasons for introducing causation into his analysis of rationalizing explanation. I consider various ways of spelling out his intuition that something is missing from explanation if we consider only the justificatory relation between reasons and action, and I argue that to the extent that there is anything missing, it should not be provided by construing reasons as causes. What is ostensibly missing, and what I think Davidson is after, is some kind of determinate relation between explanans and explanandum. I argue that this is too strong a requirement to place on rationalizing explanation.