I shall presuppose—but not here defend—three fundamental metaphysical theses. The first is that persons—such entities as ourselves—are substantival concrete things, in the strictest sense of the term “thing”, that persist through time, in the strictest sense of the expression “persist through time.” The second metaphysical thesis is that there are such entities as states of affairs, some of which occur, happen, obtain, or take place, and others of which do not occur, happen, obtain, or take place. And the third metaphysical (...) thesis is this: the fact that we are—occasionally, at least—morally responsible for what we do, implies that we are causes, that persons are causes. I shall comment briefly on this third thesis. (shrink)

Reminiscences of Peter, by P. Oppenheim.--Natural kinds, by W. V. Quine.--Inductive independence and the paradoxes of confirmation, by J. Hintikka.--Partial entailment as a basis for inductive logic, by W. C. Salmon.--Are there non-deductive logics?, by W. Sellars.--Statistical explanation vs. statistical inference, by R. C. Jeffre--Newcomb's problem and two principles of choice, by R. Nozick.--The meaning of time, by A. Grünbaum.--Lawfulness as mind-dependent, by N. Rescher.--Events and their descriptions: some considerations, by J. Kim.--The individuation of events, by D. Davidson.--On properties, by (...) H. Putnam.--A method for avoiding the Curry paradox, by F. B. Fitch.--Publications (1934-1969) by Carl G. Hempel (p. [266]-270). (shrink)

What is the relation between a reason and an action when the reason explains the action by giving the agent's reason for doing what he did? We may call such explanations rationalizations, and say that the reason rationalizes the action. In this paper I want to defend the ancient - and common-sense - position that rationalization is a species of ordinary causal explanation. The defense no doubt requires some redeployment, but not more or less complete abandonment of the position, as (...) urged by many recent writers. (shrink)