How Many Ways are there Not to Act?

Abstract

Introduction. The article offers a formal analysis of negative action sentences. The goal of the article is to define the notion of non-action, propose a classification of types of nonaction, and to describe the situations of agentive non-doing.Methodology and sources. We propose to interpret the passage from von Wright, which deals with possible interpretations of negative action sentences, as the description of types of non-action. With the help of formal tools of the logic of action, we show the difference between the supposed types of non-action as the difference between the sentences of the subject language, interpreted in different models, each of which sets specific conditions for the choice open to an agent. We offer definitions for the detected types of non-action and illustrate the differences between them with several examples.Results and discussion. We trace the embodiment of von Wright’s original ideas in modern logic of actions and then conclude the existence of a simplified interpretation of refraining in this tradition, which entailed many paradoxes when an agent refrains from everything that she does not do. We show how our analysis expands the scope of possible reactions of an agent, so that the paradox of refraining, noted by the formal and informal schools of research of this phenomenon, becomes vanishes.Conclusion. We propose to consider the list of types of non-action, the definitions of which we obtained as a result of a formal analysis of refraining, to be an exhaustive list of alternatives available to the agent in connection with any possible state of affairs in theory.