The Metaphysics of Agency - Lecture I. Cause and Causativity

Jennifer Hornsby (Birkbeck College, University of London, All Souls College, Oxford University)

The Metaphysics of Agency

[Abstract]

There is agency, one might say, when something does something. A something that does things—an agent—may be a person, a non-human animal, or an inanimate object. Things that may be done by something are many and various (exactly the range of do-able things evidently depends upon the sort of agent in question). In the course of these lectures I introduce, and attempt to answer, a variety of inter-related metaphysical questions that arise in connection with agency – whether, human, animal or inanimate. I suggest that a correct philosophy of mind requires a correct understanding of causality, and that this is an understanding best brought to the fore by considering what agency itself (in any of its varieties) involves.

Lecture I. Cause and Causativity

1 November (Wednesday) 15:30 p.m.

[Abstract]

I explore “agential verbs”—verbs which cast any subject of which they’re predicated in the role of an agent, many of which have been called “causatives”. [Examples are: ‘scrape’, ‘carry’, ‘wet’, ‘push over’, knock down’.] I scrutinize the conception of events that Donald Davidson brings to bear in his understanding of agency, and argue that although agency is a causal notion, it cannot be understood in terms of a relation cause. To this end, I shall say something about verb tense and verb aspect, in order to bring out the importance of recognizing that verbal predications may have so-called imperfective aspect [as in ‘She was/is scraping the plate’; contrast ‘She scraped the plate’].