[lit-ideas] Re: The Donalling of Donal
- From: Robert.Paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Robert Paul)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: 06 Oct 2004 10:29:32 PDT
[I hope this comes through. Lit-ideas offers me a very narrow window.]
Donal writes:
To be clear and I not saying we are not at all what we do, just that we are
not merely what we do. Our selfhood and dispositional range are not reducible
to our actions: a self is not a mere 'doing' and neither is a disposition.
Not everything that exists is a 'doing'.
---------------------------------------------
Donal will be disconcerted to hear that I agree with him almost completely. What
could it mean to say that I am what I do, in light of the conceptual truth that
I am not my own actions (beliefs, emotions, etc.) but the one who does and has
them? There are no metaphysical bundles of agentless 'doings.' If something else
is meant by the formula 'x is (essentially?) what x does,' I'm not clear what
it is.
I think though that although dispositions are not reducible to actions, there's
no way to attribute dispositions to a person or a thing unless that person
(typically?) does the things he or it is alleged to have dispositions to do.
Dispositional accounts usually trail off into circularity, Ryle to the contrary.
That 'Ryle to the contrary' may, I hope, get me off Donal's little list for
about five minutes.
Robert Paul
Under the Volcano
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