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The logical form of negative action sentences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Jonathan D. Payton
Jonathan D. Payton*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
*
Email: jonathan.payton@mail.utoronto.ca
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Abstract

It is typically assumed that actions are events, but there is a growing consensus that negative actions, like omissions and refrainments, are not events, but absences thereof. If so, then we must either deny the obvious, that we can exercise our agency by omitting and refrainment, or give up on event-based theories of agency. I trace the consensus to the assumption that negative action sentences are negative-existentials, and argue that this is false. The best analysis of negative action sentences treats them as quantifying over omissions and refrainments, conceived of as events.

Keywords

Omissionsnegative actionsaction sentencesRandolph ClarkeDonald Davidson

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Type
Article
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Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 46 , Issue 6 , December 2016 , pp. 855 - 876
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2016

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