Applies and extends the conclusions of the preceding chapters by examining cases of self‐deception of a puzzling sort emerging from cases of fantasizing and imagining, found in Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Flaubert's Madame Bovary. The author is particularly interested in what can be described as the ‘divided mind of self‐deception’, the mind that produces an imagination due to its realising the state of the world that motivates the fantasy construct and the possessor's eventual acquisition (...) of the belief that the fantasy construct represents reality accurately. In the process of deceiving oneself, he holds, no clear line can be drawn between imaginative activities that are not yet self‐deceptive and those that are. (shrink)

I Two Traditions. Scientific inquiry, seen in a very broad perspective, may be said to present two main aspects. One is the ascertaining and discovery of ...

What happens to our conception of mind and rational agency when we take seriously future-directed intentions and plans and their roles as inputs into further practical reasoning? The author's initial efforts in responding to this question resulted in a series of papers that he wrote during the early 1980s. In this book, Bratman develops further some of the main themes of these essays and also explores a variety of related ideas and issues. He develops a planning theory of intention. Intentions (...) are treated as elements of partial plans of action. These plans play basic roles in practical reasoning, roles that support the organization of our activities over time and socially. Bratman explores the impact of this approach on a wide range of issues, including the relation between intention and intentional action, and the distinction between intended and expected effects of what one intends. (shrink)

This essay develops the relation, implicit in Essay 11, of intentional action to behaviour described in purely physical terms; Davidson repeats from Essay 3 that an action counts as intentional if the agent caused it, and asks to which degree a study of action thus conceived permits being scientific. Davidson stresses the central importance of a normative concept of rationality in attributing reasons to agents ; because this concept has no echo in physical theory, any explanatory schema governed by the (...) concept is irreducible to physical theory. Davidson adduces several facts that prevent us from giving strict laws connecting reasons and action: first, we cannot give conditions that are not only necessary but also sufficient for an action to be intentional, using only the concepts of belief, desire, and cause----for we cannot specify the ”right way’ in which beliefs and desires cause actions ; second, a certain holism of the mental pervades explanations of human behaviour: we cannot assign beliefs and desires independently of and prior to the actions they cause, a point Davidson takes Ramsey’s work on subjective probability to have shown. Davidson appends a set of replies to critics, which clarify his attitude to psychology as a science, his analysis of statements of law, the principle of causal interaction, and the relation between mutually irreducible explanatory schema. (shrink)

A theory of radical interpretation gives the meanings of all sentences of a language, and can be verified by evidence available to someone who does not understand the language. Such evidence cannot include detailed information concerning the beliefs and intentions of speakers, and therefore the theory must simultaneously interpret the utterances of speakers and specify (some of) his beliefs. Analogies and connections with decision theory suggest the kind of theory that will serve for radical interpretation, and how permissible evidence can (...) support it. (shrink)

Is Anscombean practical knowledge independent of what the agent actually does on an occasion? Failure to understand Anscombe’s answer to this question is a major obstacle to appreciating the subtlety and plausibility of her view. I argue that Anscombe’s answer is negative, and turns on the nature of mistakes in performance, and reveals a distinctive implicit metaphysics of mind and knowledge, structured by related capacities and exercises of capacities. If my interpretation is correct, then practical knowledge shares features with knowledge-how (...) and knowledge-that, but deserves its own epistemic category. (shrink)

Spells out in more detail Davidson's Unified Theory of thought, meaning, and action the implications of which have been the focal point of the preceding chapters. The main task is to illuminate the conditions under which an understanding of the norms for our theories of intensional attribution is possible. What makes the task practicable at all, according to the author, is the structure the normative character of thought, desire, speech, and action imposes on correct attributions of attitudes to others, and (...) hence on interpretations of their speech and explanations of their actions. Improving our understanding of the understanding of such norms requires improvement of the grasp of the standards of rationality implicit in all interpretation of thought and action. (shrink)

Continues the theme of the preceding chapters, examining further the possibility of irrational thought and action, judged against a background that stipulates large‐scale rationality as a necessary condition for both interpretability and possession of a mind. Concentrates on the phenomenon of self‐deception, which the author holds to include ‘weakness of the warrant’, a phenomenon that violates what Hempel and Carnap have called ‘the requirement of total evidence for inductive reasoning’. The main tool to remove the paradox of self‐deception, according to (...) the author, is the recognition of the idea that there can be boundaries between parts of the mind. Such boundaries, however, are not discovered by introspection, but are conceptual aids to the coherent description of genuine irrationalities. (shrink)

Continues the theme of the preceding chapter, inquiring further into the possibility of irrational thought and action, judged against a background that stipulates large‐scale rationality as a necessary condition for both interpretability and possession of a mind. Argues that, in order to remove the paradoxes of irrationality, it is not necessary to regard judgements of irrationality as subjective; rather, a more holistic approach, which holds that irrationality is made possible by the fact that agents cannot fail to comport most of (...) the time with the basic norms of rationality, is required. Furthermore, the view of the mind that makes synchronic inconsistency seem paradoxical, namely, one that implies that all beliefs, desires, intentions, and principles of the agent that creates the inconsistency are present and in operation at once, does not seem to be tenable. (shrink)

Among the legacies of Elizabeth Anscombe's 1957 monograph Intention are the introduction of the notion of ‘practical knowledge’ into contemporary philosophical discussion of action, and her claim, pursued throughout the book, that an agent's knowledge of what he is doing is characteristically not based on observation. Each idea by itself has its own obscurities, of course, but my focus here will be on the relation between the two ideas, how it is that the discussion of action may lead us to (...) speak of non-observational knowledge at all, and how this notion can be part of the understanding of a kind of ordinary knowledge that we have reason to consider practical rather than speculative. Anscombe mentions several quite different things under the heading of ‘non-observational knowledge’, and she first introduces the notion of the nonobservational for purely dialectical purposes, associated with the task of setting out the field she wants to investigate, in a way that avoids begging the very questions she means to raise. She needs a way of distinguishing the class of movements to which a special sense of the question ‘Why?’ applies, but which doesn't itself employ the concepts of ‘being intentional’ or ‘acting for a reason’. Section 8 begins: “What is required is to describe this class without using any notions like ‘intended’ or ‘willed’ or ‘voluntary’ and ‘involuntary’. This can be done as follows: we first point out a particular class of things which are true of a man: namely the class of things which he knows without observation.” She first illustrates this by the example of knowledge of the position of one's limbs, the immediate way one can normally tell, e.g., whether one's knee is bent or not. But examples of this sort are in fact ill suited to shed light on the idea of ‘practical knowledge’, which is the true focus of the idea of the non-observational in the study of action. When we see this we will be better able to see why Anscombe is concerned with the non-observational in the first place, and how this concern is tied to other characteristic Anscombian theses, for instance that an action will be intentional under some descriptions but not others, and that practical knowledge is distinguished from speculative knowledge in being “the cause of what it understands”. And we will be able to understand how it is that an agent can be said to know without observation that he is doing something like painting the wall yellow, when this knowledge so patently involves claims about what is happening in the world, matters which it seems could only be known observationally. (shrink)

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 (...) urged by many recent writers. (shrink)

Modern philosophy has been vexed by the question "Why should I be moral?" and by doubts about the rational authority of moral virtue. In Reasons without Rationalism, Kieran Setiya shows that these doubts rest on a mistake. The "should" of practical reason cannot be understood apart from the virtues of character, including such moral virtues as justice and benevolence, and the considerations to which the virtues make one sensitive thereby count as reasons to act. Proposing a new framework for debates (...) about practical reason, Setiya argues that the only alternative to this "virtue theory" is a form of ethical rationalism in which reasons derive from the nature of intentional action. Despite its recent popularity, however, ethical rationalism is false. It wrongly assumes that we act "under the guise of the good," or it relies on dubious views about intention and motivation. It follows from the failure of rationalism that the virtue theory is true: we cannot be fully good without the perfection of practical reason, or have that perfection without being good. Addressing such topics as the psychology of virtue and the explanation of action, Reasons without Rationalism is essential reading for philosophers interested in ethics, rationality, or the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

The concept of practical knowledge is central to G.E.M. Anscombe's argument in Intention, yet its meaning is little understood. There are several reasons for this, including a lack of attention to Anscombe's ancient and medieval sources for the concept, and an emphasis on the more straightforward concept of knowledge "without observation" in the interpretation of Anscombe's position. This paper remedies the situation, first by appealing to the writings of Thomas Aquinas to develop an account of practical knowledge as a distinctive (...) form of thought that "aims at production" of things that lie within an agent's power; and then by showing how this Thomistic understanding of practical cognition seems to have been Anscombe's, too. Having done this, I question whether the thesis that agential knowledge is practical knowledge entails that an agent always has non-observational knowledge of what she is intentionally doing. I answer "Not": Anscombe's claims to the contrary rest on a misleading assimilation of human beings' finite agency to that of an infinite agent like God. (shrink)

I argue that cognitively mature human beings have an important sort of control or discretion over their own beliefs, but that to make good sense of this control, we must reject the common idea that it consists in a capacity to act on our belief-state by forming new beliefs or modifying ones we already hold. I propose that we exercise agential control over our beliefs, not primarily in doing things to alter our belief-state, but in holding whatever beliefs we hold. (...) Our beliefs are thus not normally things on which we act; they are themselves our acts, in a sense I seek to explicate. (shrink)

The problem of deviant causal chains is endemic to any theory of action that makes definitional or explanatory use of a causal connection between an agent’s beliefs and pro-attitudes and his bodily movements. Other causal theories of intentional phenomena are similarly plagued. The aim of this chapter is twofold. First, to defend Davidson’s defeatism. In his treatment of deviant causal chains, Davidson makes use of the clause “in the right way” to rule out causal waywardness, but he regards any attempt (...) at specifying ‘right’ sorts of causal histories as hopeless and even harmful. To my mind, Davidson’s defeatism contains a valuable insight, so I shall try to explain the reasons for it. Second, I shall try to answer a question that has often been ignored or passed over in the literature; namely the question of what it is that deviant causal chains deviate from. (shrink)

1. Presumably the point of, say, inculcating a moral outlook lies in a concern with how people live. It may seem that the very idea of a moral outlook makes room for, and requires, the existence of moral theory, conceived as a discipline which seeks to formulate acceptable principles of conduct. It is then natural to think of ethics as a branch of philosophy related to moral theory, so conceived, rather as the philosophy of science is related to science. On (...) this view, the primary topic of ethics is the concept of right conduct, and the nature and justification of principles of behaviour. If there is a place for an interest in the concept of virtue, it is a secondary place. Virtue is a disposition to behave rightly; the nature of virtue is explained, as it were, from the outside in. (shrink)

Someone may intend to build a squirrel house without having decided to do it, deliberated about it, formed an intention to do it, or reasoned about it. And despite his intention, he may never build a squirrel house, try to build one, or do anything whatever with the intention of getting a squirrel house built. Pure intending of this kind, intending that may occur without practical reasoning, action, or consequence, poses a problem if we want to give an account of (...) the concept of intention that does not invoke unanalysed episodes or attitudes like willing, mysterious acts of the will, or kinds of causation foreign to science. (shrink)

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.

On the face of it, conflicting constraints are placed on agents' knowledge of their own action: it is demanded that that which is known is an event happening in the “outside world”, but that the way in which it is known is “from the inside”. I propose to look at the way in which Anscombe sets up this epistemological puzzle and attempts to solve it. I discuss two ways in which Anscombe proposes to dissolve the paradox of agents' knowledge, whereof (...) the first one is rejected. Finally, I discuss different problems for the second way and suggest that we can save the Anscombian framework by rethinking the role of perception in action. (shrink)

According to the standard story of action, a story that can be traced back at least to David Hume , actions are those bodily movements that are caused and rationalized by a pair of mental states: a desire for some end, where ends can be thought of as ways the world could be, and a belief that something the agent can just do, namely, move her body in the way to be explained, has some suitable chance of making the world (...) the relevant way. Bodily movements that occur otherwise aren't actions, they are mere happenings. (shrink)

“What do you see when you look at your face in the mirror?” asks J. David Velleman in introducing his philosophical theory of action. He takes this simple act of self-scrutiny as a model for the reflective reasoning of rational agents: our efforts to understand our existence and conduct are aided by our efforts to make it intelligible. Reflective reasoning, Velleman argues, constitutes practical reasoning. By applying this conception, _Practical Reflection_ develops philosophical accounts of intention, free will, and the foundation (...) of morals. This new edition of _Practical Reflection_ contains the original 1989 text along with a new introduction and is the latest entry in The David Hume Series of Philosophy and Cognitive Science Reissues, which keeps in print previously published indispensable works in the area of cognitive science. _ _ _ _. (shrink)

“What do you see when you look at your face in the mirror?” asks J. David Velleman in introducing his philosophical theory of action. He takes this simple act of self-scrutiny as a model for the reflective reasoning of rational agents: our efforts to understand our existence and conduct are aided by our efforts to make it intelligible. Reflective reasoning, Velleman argues, constitutes practical reasoning. By applying this conception, _Practical Reflection_ develops philosophical accounts of intention, free will, and the foundation (...) of morals. This new edition of _Practical Reflection_ contains the original 1989 text along with a new introduction and is the latest entry in The David Hume Series of Philosophy and Cognitive Science Reissues, which keeps in print previously published indispensable works in the area of cognitive science. _ _ _ _. (shrink)

Descartes made a sharp distinction between matter and mind. But he also thought that the two interact with one another. Is such interaction possible, however, without either a materialist reduction of mind to matter or an idealist (phenomenalist) reduction of matter to mind? These questions overshadow the Western tradition in metaphysics from the time of Descartes to present times. The book makes an effort to stay clear of reductivist views of the two Cartesian substances. It defends a dualistic psycho-physical parallel (...) theory which reconciles freedom of action with determinism in nature. Basic problems in perception theory are also discussed, with special emphasis on hearing and sound. Because of the intrinsic interest of the subject and the author's non-technical presentation of it, the book should appeal to all readers with a serious interest in philosophy and psychology. (shrink)

When I first read Intention as a student it seemed misnamed, since, I thought, it gave an account of intentional action all right, but left me still wondering what an intention was. It was only with years of rereading that I came to see that one beauty of the account was that it eliminated the need to ask.

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 (...) Teleological Realism, Scott Sehon argues that CSP explanations are not causal but teleological -- that they cite the purpose or goal of the behavior in question rather than an antecedent state that caused the behavior. CSP explanations of behavior, Sehon claims, are answering a question different from that answered by physical science explanations, and, accordingly, CSP explanations and physical science explanations are independent of one another. Common-sense facts about mind and agency can thus be independent of the physical facts about human beings, and, contrary to the views of most philosophers of mind in recent decades, common-sense psychology will not be subsumed by physical science.Sehon defends his non-reductionist account of mind and agency in clear and nontechnical language. He carefully distinguishes his view from forms of "strong naturalism" that would seem to preclude it. And he evaluates key objections to teleological realism, including those posed by Donald Davidson's influential article "Actions, Reasons and Causes" and some put forth by more recent proponents of causal theories of action. CSP, Sehon argues, has a different realm than does physical science; the normative notions that are central to CSP are not reducible to physical facts and laws. (shrink)

According to G. E. M. Anscombe, practical knowledge, an agent’s knowledge of what she is intentionally doing, is not contemplative or speculative; it does not owe its being knowledge to its being derived from what it knows. She argues for this on the ground that practical knowledge can be one of “two knowledges of the same thing”, where the other of the two is speculative. If we try to conceive practical knowledge as speculative, we fall into a hopeless picture in (...) which practical knowledge is provided by “a queer and special seeing eye in the middle of the acting”. I take Anscombe’s thought to be this: practical knowledge is knowledge concerning a happening that the agent may also know speculatively is her doing. I argue that this thesis is not threatened by the possibility of cases in which a happening that the agent knows as her doing would not be available to her to know as her doing if she did not know it speculatively. (shrink)

Summary To judge a belief, emotion, or action irrational is to make a normative judgment. Can such judgments be objective? It is argued that in an important class of cases they can be. The cases are those in which a person has a set of attitudes which are inconsistent by his or her own standards, and those standards are constitutive of the attitudes. Constitutive standards are standards with which an agents' attitudes and intentional actions must generally accord if judgments of (...) irrationality are to be intelligible.RésuméJuger irrationnelles une croyance, une émotion ou une action, c'est faire un jugement normatif. De tels jugements peuvent‐ils ětre objectifs? On montre qu'ils peuvent l'ětre dans une classe importante de cas: ceux où une personne a un ensemble d'attitudes qui sont inconsistantes avec ses propres normes, ces normes étant constitutives des attitudes considérées. Les normes constitutives sont des normes avec lesquelles les attitudes et les actions intentionnelles des agents doivent s'accorder pour que les jugements d'irrationalité deviennent intelligibles.ZusammenfassungWenn wir einen Glauben, eine Emotion oder eine Handlung als irrational beurteilen, so fällen wir ein normatives Urteil. Kann ein solches objektiv sein? Es wird argumentiert, dass dies für eine wichtige Klasse von Fällen zutrifft. Die Fälle sind diejenigen, in welchen eine Person eine Menge von Haltungen hat, die nach ihren eigenen Massstäben unvereinbar sind, und wo diese Massstäbe für die Haltungen konstitutiv sind. Konstitutive Massstäbe sind solche, mit denen die Haltungen und absichtlichen Handlungen des Handelnden im allgemeinen übereinstimmen müssen, wenn Urteile über Irrationalität verständlich sein sollen. (shrink)

Anomalous Monism is the view that mental entities are identical with physical entities, but that the vocabulary used to describe, predict and explain mental events is neither definitionally nor nomologically reducible to the vocabulary of physics. The argument for Anomalous Monism rests in part on the claim that every true singular causal statement relating two events is backed by a law that covers those events when those events are appropriately described. This paper attempts to clarify and defend this claim by (...) tracing out some conceptual relations among the concepts of event, law, and object. (shrink)