  This argument echoes the logical connection argument advanced in the 1950’s and 60’s against causal accounts of action (e.g., Melden 1961, pp. 52–3). Given that reasons (desires, intentions) are not logically distinct from the actions they rationalize, reasons could not cause actions. In response, Davidson (1963) noted that logical connections hold among predicates or descriptions of events, not among events themselves. A cause could be described in various ways, some of which will involve the effect: consider “the cause of the fire caused the fire”. This is hardly informative, but it’s not thereby false. And of course the statement, far from precluding a causal relation, explicitly asserts it. That said, if the claim is true, it should be possible to identify the cause of the fire independently of reference to the effect—as “the match’s igniting”, for instance. In defense of his own causal theory of action, Davidson argued that such a re-description of mental causes is always available, at least in principle (see §5.1).