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This chapter is a response to the arguments presented in the previous one. The previous chapter’s criticisms were directed against philosophers who argue that deficiencies in the standard story of action are to be addressed through the addition of states of different sorts from beliefs and desires to the causes of bodily movements. These philosophers fail to address the question of whether their story contains the causal notions that belong in an account of human agency or not. According to Michael Smith, this argument charges the standard story with incompleteness, which is a misleading notion. It was never suggested that the story required completion, even if it was posited that the causal role of agents ceases to exist in an events-based conception of the causal order. This chapter aims to show that the standard story stops making sense once it is accepted that a person’s acting is a matter of exercising a capacity he or she possesses as agent.

This chapter illustrates how Davidson’s works on the philosophy of action have spawned a widely accepted view that differs from his own in a number of respects. Critics of the standard story, of which Davidson was a major contributor, generally assume that he accepted the view that actions are bodily movements caused and rationalized by beliefs and desires, as do its defenders, who invariably cite him as their inspiration and often credit him for rooting the story in physicalism. However, both critics and defenders fail to see the substantial influence of Elizabeth Anscombe’s work on Davidsonian philosophy. Although commonly viewed as having replaced an account like Anscombe’s with the standard story, Davidson rather thought that such an account was consistent with a causal account of action.

This introduction offers a brief historical examination of the three key stages of the development of the causal theory of action (CTA), namely, the ancient classical period represented by the work of Aristotle, the early modern period represented by the work of Thomas Hobbes, and the contemporary period represented by the work of Donald Davidson. Usually, philosophy of action is interpreted either broadly, including all of the problems in philosophy dealing with human action and agency, or more narrowly, concerned merely with the cluster of issues dealing directly with the nature of intentional action and the explanation of action. However the philosophy of action is characterized, only a single theory has recently enjoyed the title of “the standard story” of human action and agency in the literature, and that pleasure belongs to the CTA. This chapter presents contemporary versions of the CTA and the main topics of debate surrounding it.

This chapter presents the standard story concerning the revolution in the arts that took place in the early modern period in Western Europe: the rising middle class increasingly engaged works of the arts as objects of disinterested aesthetic attention. This change in practice was accompanied by changes in writing about the arts. Whereas previously writers about the arts focused mainly on the making of works, now they focused instead on what was called “contemplation.” The idea of disinterested contemplation emerged, as did our concept of fine art. And our modern art world came into existence, with its market system, its public museums and concert halls, etc. The chapter closes by contrasting the standard story of the changes that took place with Larry Shiner’s story of those changes.