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Trying

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2010

Suzanne McCormick  and
Irving Thalberg
Suzanne McCormick
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Irving Thalberg
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Chicago Circle
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Extract

The notion of trying is vital to any theory of action. You could hardly analyse much of what people do without mentioning their efforts, successful and unsuccessful. A man's desires and decisions find expression in his attempts. What you are trying to do is also a prime example of what you know without benefit of evidence and observation. It might seem that little attention has been devoted to this central concept because it is philosophically trouble-free. Isn't trying simply exerting yourself—mentally or physically—as a means of bringing about some result you want? And just as you can think of anything under the sun, can't you try to do anything at all? These and similar natural views of trying call forth a swarm of minor, but challenging problems. To begin with, there are at least three relevant species of trying besides the pre-eminent cause-effect or meansends type. I won't take time to belabor the suggestion that trying is merely bracing yourself inwardly, while manifesting your subcutaneous capers through your behavior. But this quaint hypothesis does raise problems. Is trying just doing something? To what extent is it constituted by the agent's intentions and beliefs? As for what a person can try to do, a random survey indicates that there are unsuspected limits. It sounds absurd to describe a person as attempting to choke, to misplace something, to feel pain, to get annoyed or discouraged.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , June 1967 , pp. 29 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1967

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References

1 Stuart Hampshire appears to make both assumptions in Thought and Action (London: 1959), pp. 107–113, 134, 170–187Google Scholar; but he rejects an exclusively causal picture of trying in Freedom of the Individual (London: 1965), pp. 23–31Google Scholar. In an abstract, “Acting and Producing” (Journal of Philosophy LXII, 21: 645–8 (1965))Google Scholar, Kurt Baier apparently denies any restrictions on what one may try to do. He writes: “I doubt whether there are any species of action in which it is impossible to distinguish between on the one hand the attempt and on the other success or failure.”

2 The latest refutation of the ‘internal cause’ theory will be found in a book that appeared since this essay was submitted for publication, Taylor's, RichardAction and Purpose (Englewood Cliffs: 1966), especially pp. 57–85, 244–57Google Scholar.

3 In “Punishment for Thoughts,” The Monist XLIX, 3 (1965)Google Scholar, Herbert Morris discusses the doctrine of various writers on jurisprudence “that the sole purpose for requiring conduct in the law of attempts is to establish mens rea.” See Morris’ references, pp. 354–6.

4 London: 1953, tr. by G. E. M. Anscombe, Part I, Sections 622–3.

5 Some of these points are mentioned by d'Arcy, E., in Human Acts (London: 1963), p. 33 ffGoogle Scholar.

6 For additional arguments, see Danto, Arthur: “What We Can Do,” Journal of Philosophy LX, 15: 435–45 (1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Basic Actions,” American Philosophical Quarterly II, 2 (1965), esp. p. 147 ffGoogle Scholar.

7 Baier, op. cit., runs together these two senses of ‘fail’ when he argues: “Failing does not entail trying. Some people fail because they do not try.” See also Taylor, op. cit., p. 85.

8 Further nuances of pretending are treated in the symposium, “Pretending,” between Austin, J. L. and Anscombe, G. E. M., Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume XXXII (1958)Google Scholar. One of Austin's examples must be mentioned here. Suppose you are told to pretend to be a hyena at a party. “You proceed to jump around powerfully on your hind legs, boxing with your fists and fondling something in your pocket,” says Austin: “You are meaning or trying to pretend to be a hyena, but actually behaving like a kangaroo: this is the correct and the shortest accurate way of describing the situation. There is no short answer to the question ‘Is he pretending to be a hyena or isn't he’ ?” Now if we assume, with Austin, that you meant to pretend to be a hyena, we must conclude that you were indeed pretending, although your gestures were singularly inappropriate. Consequently you were not trying to pretend. If Austin cannot give the short answer that you were not pretending to be a hyena, how will he maintain that you were only trying?

9 Taylor, op. cit., pp. 85–5, insists that a victim of total paralysis “knows … that he cannot move his leg, simply because he finds that he cannot,” rather than by attempting vainly (and mentally, perhaps) to move it.