A teoria das ações de Donald Davidson.

Abstract

Davidson adopts the principle that actions can be explained by the desire to reach a certain goal and the belief that one is doing what is necessary to satisfy this desire, and that this couple desire-belief constitutes a reason for the agent to act. In the analysis of an action, many reasons can be given, but only one can count as the one by which the agent acted. And if the reason by which the agent acted explains his action, this primary reason is the cause of his acting. Nevertheless, there are cases in which the reason given by the agent himself in the explanation of his action does not count, according to his own best judgment, as his best reason to act, and the cause of the action is not anymore the reason itself, but the desire that led the agent to deny what he considered the best to be done. This desire, denying his best judgment, can not be justified by the agents reasons, and must be called irrational and considered as the cause of an irrational action. In the explanation of this kind of actions, Davidson is forced to elaborate the principles of a philosophy of mind in which he takes three principles he attributes to Freud.