The paper argues that there are two main kinds of joint action, direct joint bringing about (or performing) something (expressed in terms of a DO-operator) and jointly seeing to it that something is the case (expressed in terms of a Stit-operator). The former kind of joint action contains conjunctive, disjunctive and sequential action and its central subkinds. While joint seeing to it that something is the case is argued to be necessarily intentional, direct joint performance can also be nonintentional. Actions (...) performed by social groups are analyzed in terms of the notions of joint action (basically DO and Stit).A precise semantical analysis of the aforementioned kinds of joint action is given in terms of time-trees. With each participant a tree is connected, and the trees are joined defining joint possible worlds in terms of state-expressing nodes from the trees. Sentences containing DO and Stit are semantically evaluated with respect to such joint possible worlds. Intentional joint actions are characterized in terms of the notion of we-intention (joint intention), characterized formally by means of a special operator. (shrink)

This paper gives an up-to-date account of we-intentions and responds to some critics of the author’s earlier work on the topic in question. While the main lines of the new account are basically the same as before, the present account considerably adds to the earlier work. For one thing, it shows how we-intentions and joint intentions can arise in terms of the so-called Bulletin Board View of joint intention acquisition, which relies heavily on some underlying mutually accepted conceptual and situational (...) presuppositions but does not require agreement making or joint intention to form a joint intention. The model yields categorical, unconditional intentions to participate in the content of the we-intention and joint intention (viz. shared we-intention upon analysis). The content of a we-intention can be, but need not be a joint action. Thus a participant alone cannot settle and control the content of the intention. Instead the participants jointly settle the content and control the satisfaction of the intention. These and some other features distinguish we-intentions from “action intentions”, viz. intentions that an agent can alone settle and satisfy. The paper discusses weintentions (and other “aim-intentions”) from this perspective and it also defends the author’s earlier account against a charge of vicious circularity that has been directed against it. (shrink)

The paper discusses eliminative explanation in which a (social) successor theory correctively explains and, as a consequence, eliminates its predecessor theory. Technical concepts and results from general logic are applied to the explication of corrective explanation, especially to the notion of framework translation that it involves.

In this paper, I argue that joint action permits a certain degree of luck. The cases I have in mind exhibit the following structure: each participant believes that the intended ends of each robustly support the joint action. This belief turns out to be false. Due to lucky circumstances, the discordance in intention never becomes common knowledge. However, common knowledge of the relevant intentions would have undermined the joint action altogether. The analysis of such cases shows the extent to which (...) common knowledge of the participants’ intentions can be harmful to joint action. This extends a recent line of research that has questioned the necessity of common knowledge in joint action. (shrink)

This paper gives a survey of the philosophy of science in Finland during the two decades 1970-90. Topics covered include the background (earlier studies by Eino Kaila, G. H. von Wright, and Jaakko Hintikka), the main areas of research (inductive logic, probability, truthlikeness, scientific theory, theory change, scientific realism, explanation and action, foundations of special disciplines), and the cultural impact of science studies.

In this paper, I restrict the discussion to overt intentional action, intentional action that essentially involves peripheral bodily movement. My guiding question is this: If there is a specific motivational role that intention is plausibly regarded as playing in all cases of overt intentional action, in virtue of what feature(s) of intention does it play this role? I am looking for an answer that can be articulated in the terminology of intentionalist psychology.

Many philosophers of action, including Bratman and Mele, conceive intentions functionally, as executive states: intentions are mental states that represent an action and tend to cause this action. In the philosophical tradition (e.g. for Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Leibniz, Kant) another function of intentions, which may be called “volitive”, played a much more prominent role: intentions are mental states that represent what kind of actions we want and prefer to be realised and thus, in a possibly rational way, synthesise our motivational, (...) desiderative, and perhaps affective as well as cognitive attitudes towards this action. This paper argues that intentions must fulfil both functions and then develops a concept of ‘intention’ that integrates both functions. One reason for including the volitive function in the definition of ‘intention’ is that only via this function the value of actions as such is realised, namely to enable the person, the kernel of the self to express herself and to control the world. Various forms of dissociation of the two functions are discussed and a proposal how to deal with such cases in the definition of ‘intention’ is developed. (shrink)

La philosophie analytique de l'action se réclame du langage ordinaire de l'action comme une des sources de ses data philosophiques. Elle se propose d'en examiner le fonctionnement, d'en extraire les concepts clés, de caractériser les formes de propositions dans lesquelles s'expriment nos actions et notre façon spontanée de les comprendre, d'examiner l'articulation propre aux stratégies d'action et au discours qui les justifie, et de faire des « proposals » pour la construction d'une théorie de l'action. En somme, il s'agit d'ériger (...) le langage ordinaire en instance de contrôle aussi bien sur le plan du traitement de problèmes philosophiques que sur celui de la construction de méta-théories des sciences de l'homme. Ce travail sur le langage de l'action peut revêtir plusieurs fonctions: fonction de clarification ou de détection de confusions, fonction thérapeutique pour guérir le langage de maladies philosophiques, c'est-à-dire des pseudo-problèmes, fonction heuristique pour prescrire une diète appropriée au traitement des perplexités philosophiques qui surgissent « quand le langage tourne à vide, non quand il travaille », pour employer le mot de Wittgenstein. (shrink)

This work consists of two parts. Part I will be a contribution to a philo- sophical discussion of the nature of causal explanation. It will present my contrastive counterfactual theory of causal explanation and show how it can be used to deal with a number of problems facing theories of causal explanation. Part II is a contribution to a discussion of the na- ture of interest explanation in social studies of science. The aim is to help to resolve some controversies (...) concerning interest explanation by explicating the concept of interest and its explanatory uses by using the account of explanation developed in Part I. (shrink)