The explanation of action

pp. 105-128

in: James Swindal, Action and existence, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012

Abstract

Having stipulated a working definition of an action — actions are existential unities reconstructable as bodily movements caused by an agent in light of an intended end — we can now examine how actions are explained. The definition provides criteria on the basis of which an action can be picked out; the explanation gives the conditions on the basis of which one can say why the action happened.¹ Some philosophers speak of the justification of actions, by which actions are understood as moral. But this is beyond the scope of this study. Here we shall be concerned only with the explanation, understood as that by which actions are comprehensible.