Switch to: Citations

Add references

You must login to add references.
  1. (1 other version)Actions, Reasons, and Causes.Donald Davidson - 1963 - Journal of Philosophy 60 (23):685.
    What is the relation between a reason and an action when the reason explains the action by giving the agent's reason for doing what he did? We may call such explanations rationalizations, and say that the reason rationalizes the action. In this paper I want to defend the ancient - and common-sense - position that rationalization is a species of ordinary causal explanation. The defense no doubt requires some redeployment, but not more or less complete abandonment of the position, as (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1309 citations  
  • Nature's Metaphysics: Laws and Properties.Alexander Bird - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Professional philosophers and advanced students working in metaphysics and the philosophy of science will find this book both provocative and stimulating.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   556 citations  
  • The Significance of Free Will.Robert Kane - 1996 - New York, US: Oxford University Press USA.
    Robert Kane provides a critical overview of debates about free will of the past half century, relating this recent inquiry to the broader history of the free will issue and to vital currents of twentieth century thought. Kane also defends a traditional libertarian or incompatibilist view of free will, employing arguments that are both new to philosophy and that respond to contemporary developments in physics and biology, neuro science, and the cognitive and behavioral sciences.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   596 citations  
  • (4 other versions)A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40).David Hume - 1739 - Mineola, N.Y.: Oxford University Press. Edited by Ernest Campbell Mossner.
    A key to modern studies of 18th century Western philosophy, the Treatise considers numerous classic philosophical issues, including causation, existence, freedom and necessity and morality. This abridged edition has an introduction which explain's Hume's thought and places it in the context of its times.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   545 citations  
  • Scientific Essentialism.Brian Ellis - 2001 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    Scientific Essentialism defends the view that the fundamental laws of nature depend on the essential properties of the things on which they are said to operate, and are therefore not independent of them. These laws are not imposed upon the world by God, the forces of nature or anything else, but rather are immanent in the world. Ellis argues that ours is a dynamic world consisting of more or less transient objects which are constantly interacting with each other, and whose (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   522 citations  
  • (3 other versions)Causation.David Lewis - 1973 - Journal of Philosophy 70 (17):556-567.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   847 citations  
  • (2 other versions)A Treatise of Human Nature.David Hume & A. D. Lindsay - 1958 - Philosophical Quarterly 8 (33):379-380.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2049 citations  
  • Practical Reality.Jonathan Dancy - 2000 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
    Practical Reality is a lucid original study of the relation between the reasons why we do things and the reasons why we should. Jonathan Dancy maintains that current philosophical orthodoxy bowdlerizes this relation, making it impossible to understand how anyone can act for a good reason. By giving a fresh account of values and reasons, he finds a place for normativity in philosophy of mind and action, and strengthens the connection between these areas and ethics.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   394 citations  
  • Getting Causes From Powers.Stephen Mumford & Rani Lill Anjum - 2011 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press. Edited by Rani Lill Anjum.
    Causation is everywhere in the world: it features in every science and technology. But how much do we understand it? Mumford and Anjum develop a new theory of causation based on an ontology of real powers or dispositions. They provide the first detailed outline of a thoroughly dispositional approach, and explore its surprising features.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   275 citations  
  • Powers: A Study in Metaphysics.George Molnar - 2003 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Stephen Mumford.
    George Molnar came to see that the solution to a number of the problems of contemporary philosophy lay in the development of an alternative to Hume's metaphysics. This alternative would have real causal powers at its centre. Molnar set about developing a thorough account of powers that might persuade those who remained, perhaps unknowingly, in the grip of Humean assumptions. He succeeded in producing something both highly focused and at the same time wide-ranging. He showed both that the notion of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   386 citations  
  • The Universe as We Find It.John Heil - 2012 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
    What does reality encompass? Is it exclusively physical, or does it include mental and 'abstract' aspects? What are the elements of being, reality's raw materials? John Heil offers stimulating answers to these questions framed in terms of a comprehensive metaphysics of substances and properties inspired by Descartes, Locke, and their successors.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   205 citations  
  • (1 other version)Springs of action: understanding intentional behavior.Alfred R. Mele - 1992 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Tackling some central problems in the philosophy of action, Mele constructs an explanatory model for intentional behavior, locating the place and significance of such mental phenomena as beliefs, desires, reason, and intentions in the etiology of intentional action. Part One comprises a comprehensive examination of the standard treatments of the relations between desires, beliefs, and actions. In Part Two, Mele goes on to develop a subtle and well-defended view that the motivational role of intentions is of a different sort from (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   293 citations  
  • A Metaphysics for Freedom.Helen Steward - 2012 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
    Helen Steward argues that determinism is incompatible with agency itself--not only the special human variety of agency, but also powers which can be accorded to animal agents. She offers a distinctive, non-dualistic version of libertarianism, rooted in a conception of what biological forms of organisation might make possible in the way of freedom.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   187 citations  
  • Kinds of Reasons: An Essay in the Philosophy of Action.Maria Alvarez - 2010 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
    Understanding human beings and their distinctive rational and volitional capacities requires a clear account of such things as reasons, desires, emotions, and motives, and how they combine to produce and explain human behaviour. Maria Alvarez presents a fresh and incisive study of these concepts, centred on reasons and their role in human agency.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   203 citations  
  • Causal powers: a theory of natural necessity.Rom Harré & Edward H. Madden - 1975 - Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield. Edited by Edward H. Madden.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   231 citations  
  • Willing, Wanting, Waiting.Richard Holton - 2009 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
    Richard Holton provides a unified account of intention, choice, weakness of will, strength of will, temptation, addiction, and freedom of the will. Drawing on recent psychological research, he argues that, rather than being the pinnacle of rationality, the central components of the will are there to compensate for our inability to make or maintain sound judgments. Choice is understood as the capacity to form intentions even in the absence of judgments of what action is best. Weakness of will is understood (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   184 citations  
  • Making sense of freedom and responsibility.Dana Kay Nelkin - 2011 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Nelkin presents a simple and natural account of freedom and moral responsibility which responds to the great variety of challenges to the idea that we are free and responsible, before ultimately reaffirming our conception of ourselves as agents. Making Sense of Freedom and Responsibility begins with a defense of the rational abilities view, according to which one is responsible for an action if and only if one acts with the ability to recognize and act for good reasons. The view is (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   156 citations  
  • Achievement.Gwen Bradford - 2015 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
    Gwen Bradford presents the first systematic account of what achievements are, and why they are worth the effort. She argues that more things count as achievements than we might have thought, and offers a new perfectionist theory of value in which difficulty, perhaps surprisingly, plays a central part in characterizing achievements.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   111 citations  
  • The Mind in Nature.C. B. Martin - 2007 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
    What are the most fundamental features of the world? Do minds stand outside the natural order? Is a unified picture of mental and physical reality possible? The Mind in Nature provides a staunchly realist account of the world as a unified system incorporating both the mental and the physical.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   199 citations  
  • Treatise of Human Nature.L. A. Selby-Bigge (ed.) - 1739 - Oxford University Press.
    David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, composed before the author was twenty-eight years old, was published in 1739 and 1740. In revising the late L.A. Selby-Bigge's edition of Hume's Treatise Professor Nidditch corrected verbal errors and took account of Hume's manuscript amendments. He also supplied the text of theof the Treatise following the original 1740 edition and provided an apparatus of variant readings.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   214 citations  
  • (3 other versions)Causation.David Lewis - 1986 - In Philosophical Papers, Volume II. New York, US: Oxford University Press. pp. 159-213.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   645 citations  
  • The constitution of agency: essays on practical reason and moral psychology.Christine M. Korsgaard - 2008 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Christine M. Korsgaard is one of today's leading moral philosophers: this volume collects ten influential papers by her on practical reason and moral psychology ...
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   164 citations  
  • Practical Reality.Jonathan Dancy - 2000 - Philosophy 78 (305):414-425.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   491 citations  
  • (1 other version)Causal relations.Donald Davidson - 1967 - Journal of Philosophy 64 (21):691-703.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   342 citations  
  • (1 other version)What Happens When Someone Acts?J. David Velleman - 1992 - Mind 101 (403):461-481.
    What happens when someone acts? A familiar answer goes like this. There is something that the agent wants, and there is an action that he believes conducive to its attainment. His desire for the end, and his belief in the action as a means, justify taking the action, and they jointly cause an intention to take it, which in turn causes the corresponding movements of the agent's body. I think that the standard story is flawed in several respects. The flaw (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   217 citations  
  • The Significance of Free Will.Robert Kane - 1996 - Philosophical and Phenomenological Research 60 (1):129-134.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   429 citations  
  • Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason.Hugh J. McCann & M. E. Bratman - 1991 - Noûs 25 (2):230.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   392 citations  
  • What is a Reason to Act?Kieran Setiya - 2014 - Philosophical Studies 167 (2):221-235.
    Argues for a conception of reasons as premises of practical reasoning. This conception is applied to questions about ignorance, advice, enabling conditions, "ought," and evidence.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   125 citations  
  • Springs of Action: Understanding Intentional Behavior.Albert R. MELE - 1992
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   307 citations  
  • (1 other version)The problem of action.Harry G. Frankfurt - 1997 - In Alfred R. Mele, The philosophy of action. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 157-62.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   196 citations  
  • Freedom to act.Donald Davidson - 1973 - In Ted Honderich, Essays on Freedom of Action. Boston,: Routledge.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   190 citations  
  • Natural Agency: An Essay on the Causal Theory of Action.John Bishop - 1989 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    From a moral point of view we think of ourselves as capable of responsible actions. From a scientific point of view we think of ourselves as animals whose behaviour, however highly evolved, conforms to natural scientific laws. Natural Agency argues that these different perspectives can be reconciled, despite the scepticism of many philosophers who have argued that 'free will' is impossible under 'scientific determinism'. This scepticism is best overcome, according to the author, by defending a causal theory of action, that (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   98 citations  
  • Scientific Essentialism.Lenny Clapp - 2002 - Philosophical Review 111 (4):589-594.
    Scientific Essentialism defends the view that the fundamental laws of nature depend on the essential properties of the things on which they are said to operate, and are therefore not independent of them. These laws are not imposed upon the world by God, the forces of nature, or anything else, but rather are immanent in the world. Ellis argues that ours is a dynamic world consisting of more or less transient objects that are constantly interacting with each other, and whose (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   228 citations  
  • Understanding Human Agency.Erasmus Mayr - 2011 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
    Our self-understanding as human agents includes a commitment to three crucial claims about human agency: that agents must be active, that actions are part of the natural order of the universe, and that intentional actions can be explained by the agent's reasons for acting. While all of these claims are indispensable elements of our view of ourselves as human agents, they are in continuous conflict and tension with one another, especially once one adopts the currently predominant view of what the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   61 citations  
  • A Theory of Human Action.Alvin Ira Goldman - 1970 - Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   492 citations  
  • Reasons for action, acting for reasons, and rationality.Maria Alvarez - 2018 - Synthese 195 (8):3293-3310.
    What kind of thing is a reason for action? What is it to act for a reason? And what is the connection between acting for a reason and rationality? There is controversy about the many issues raised by these questions. In this paper I shall answer the first question with a conception of practical reasons that I call ‘Factualism’, which says that all reasons are facts. I defend this conception against its main rival, Psychologism, which says that practical reasons are (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   45 citations  
  • The contours of control.Joshua Shepherd - 2014 - Philosophical Studies 170 (3):395-411.
    Necessarily, if S lacks the ability to exercise control, S is not an agent. If S is not an agent, S cannot act intentionally, responsibly, or rationally, nor can S possess or exercise free will. In spite of the obvious importance of control, however, no general account of control exists. In this paper I reflect on the nature of control itself. I develop accounts of control ’s exercise and control ’s possession that illuminate what it is for degrees of control (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   55 citations  
  • (1 other version)Intending and Acting.Myles Brand - 1984 - Mind 96 (381):121-124.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   163 citations  
  • Conscious Action/Zombie Action.Joshua Shepherd - 2016 - Noûs 50 (2):419-444.
    I argue that the neural realizers of experiences of trying are not distinct from the neural realizers of actual trying . I then ask how experiences of trying might relate to the perceptual experiences one has while acting. First, I assess recent zombie action arguments regarding conscious visual experience, and I argue that contrary to what some have claimed, conscious visual experience plays a causal role for action control in some circumstances. Second, I propose a multimodal account of the experience (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   32 citations  
  • (1 other version)Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason.M. E. Bratman - 1991 - Noûs 25 (2):230-233.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   177 citations  
  • (1 other version)Powers: A Study in Metaphysics.George Molnar & Stephen Mumford - 2006 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 72 (2):485-487.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   157 citations  
  • (1 other version)Powers: A Study in Metaphysics.George Molnar & Stephen Mumford - 2005 - Philosophical Quarterly 55 (221):674-677.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   158 citations  
  • How we act: causes, reasons, and intentions.Berent Enç - 2003 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Talking about action comes easily to us. We quickly make distinctions between voluntary and non-voluntary actions; we think we can tell what intentions are; we are confident about evaluating reasons offered in rational justification of action. Berent Enc provides a philosopher's sustained examination of these issues: he portrays action as belonging to the causal order of events in nature, a theory from which new and surprising accounts of intention and voluntary action emerge. Philosophers and cognitive scientists alike will find How (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   63 citations  
  • (1 other version)Causal Relations.Donald Davidson - 2004 - In Tim Crane & Katalin Farkas, Metaphysics: a guide and anthology. New York: Oxford University Press.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   150 citations  
  • (1 other version)A compatibilist version of the theory of agent causation.Ned Markosian - 1999 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 80 (3):257-277.
    The problem of freedom and determinism has vexed philosophers for several millennia, and continues to be a topic of lively debate today. One of the proposed solutions to the problem that has received a great deal of attention is the Theory of Agent Causation. While the theory has enjoyed its share of advocates, and perhaps more than its share of critics, the theory’s advocates and critics have always agreed on one thing: the Theory of Agent Causation is an incompatibilist theory. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   62 citations  
  • Causation as simultaneous and continuous.Michael Huemer & Ben Kovitz - 2003 - Philosophical Quarterly 53 (213):556–565.
    We propose that all actual causes are simultaneous with their direct effects, as illustrated by both everyday examples and the laws of physics. We contrast this view with the sequential conception of causation, according to which causes must occur prior to their effects. The key difference between the two views of causation lies in differing assumptions about the mathematical structure of time.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   54 citations  
  • (1 other version)Free Action.A. I. Melden - 1961 - Philosophy 37 (141):280-281.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   105 citations  
  • Natural Agency.John Bishop - 1989 - Mind 100 (2):287-290.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   100 citations  
  • Teleological Realism: Mind, Agency, and Explanation.Scott Robert Sehon - 2005 - Cambridge MA: Bradford Book/MIT Press.
    Using the language of common-sense psychology, we explain human behavior by citing its reason or purpose, and this is central to our understanding of human beings as agents. On the other hand, since human beings are physical objects, human behavior should also be explicable in the language of physical science, in which causal accounts cast human beings as collections of physical particles. CSP talk of mind and agency, however, does not seem to mesh well with the language of physical science.In (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   45 citations  
  • Agents and their actions.Maria Alvarez & John Hyman - 1998 - Philosophy 73 (2):219-245.
    In the past thirty years or so, the doctrine that actions are events has become an essential, and sometimes unargued, part of the received view in the philosophy of action, despite the efforts of a few philosophers to undermine the consensus. For example, the entry for Agency in a recently published reference guide to the philosophy of mind begins with the following sentence: A central task in the philosophy of action is that of spelling out the differences between events in (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   74 citations