Aristotle on Actions and its Causes

Abstract

The article raises the question of the legitimacy of considering Aristotle’s theory of action as a standard causalism in the version of D. Davidson’s theory of action. Davidson believes that Aristotle could agree with the fundamental assumptions of the standard theory of action that the agent’s psychological attitudes (desires and beliefs) are the reasons for actions as well as their causes. However, an analysis of Aristotle's texts and a review of modern commentaries have shown that there are deep conceptual differences between the approaches of Aristotle and Davidson. The article demonstrates that the holism of the Aristotelian theory of action leads to the tendency to give an exhaustive description of the action with the help of four causes, to place the action in the teleological context of the functioning of a living being, and also to fit it into the structure of the world order as a whole. All these properties have no place in standard causalism, which is characterized by particularism, and according to which it is not the goals that play the primary role, but the desires and beliefs of the agent. In the final part of the article, the author suggests that M. Bratman, who developed a planning theory of intention, should be considered the true successor of Aristotle