There are a number of questions, the answers to which define specific theoretical approaches to Hegel’s philosophy of action. To begin with, does Hegel attempt to give a theory of free will that responds to the naturalistic skepticism so prevalent in the history of modern philosophy? Though some scholars hold that he is interested in providing such a theory, perhaps the majority view is that Hegel instead socializes his conception of the will such that the traditional naturalistic (...) worries are no longer germane.1 A second question is: does Hegel have a theory of action as such that competes with those found in the history of modern philosophy and more particularly in the Anglophone literature from the mid-20th century onwards? Though perhaps the majority view is that Hegel does have such a theory of action, it is commonly held to be independent of any commitments to a conception of free will, and to take a form radically different from the other offerings in the literature in virtue of introducing and essentially retrospective rather than prospective relation between the agent and her action. (shrink)

A primary fault line in the analytic philosophy of action is the debate between causal/Davidsonian and interpretivist/Anscombian theories of action. The fundamental problem of the former is producing a criterion for distinguishing intentional from non-intentional causal chains; the fundamental problem of the latter is producing an account of the relation between reasons and actions that is represented by the ‘because’ in the claim that the agent acted because she had the reason. It is argued that Hegel’s conception (...) of teleology can be used to develop the interpretivist position by solving both its and the causal theory’s fundamental problems. (shrink)

The folk Psychology frames propositional attitudes as fundamental theoretical entities for the construction of a model designed to predict the behavior of a subject. A trivial, such as grasping a pen and writing reveals - something complex - about the behavior. When I take a pen and start writing I do, trivially, because I believe that a certain object in front of me is a pen and who performs a specific function that is, in fact, that of writing. When I (...) believe that the object that stands before me is a pen, I am in relation to "believe" with the propositional content: that in front of me is a pen. Philosophers of the proposition, from Frege onwards, have dedicated their studies to the analysis of what kinds of entities are the propositional attitudes. Jerry Fodor says that now, the proper prediction of the psychology of common sense, can not be questioned and that the propositional attitudes represent the most effective way to describe our behavior. What Fodor says, however, is that propositional attitudes function, but not how they work. Most philosophers interested in the issue, we are dedicated to the search for a theory that can account consistently both a semantics for propositional attitudes, both of these entities that seem to cause the behavior of a rational subject. There are two main paradigms in the theory of the proposition that contributed to the discussion of the propositional attitudes. One is the one that begins with Gottlob Frege, the other with Bertrand Russell. Defenders of Frege argue that the paradigm scrub objects and properties can not be constituents of the propositional content which have a purely conceptual. In other words, the philosophers belonging to the paradigm of Frege, but not all, mean that you can test in a rigorous way the truth conditions of propositional attitudes. Who defends the russellian’s paradigm argues that the propositional content are made by the objects and properties on which propositional attitudes relate. The purpose of this article is not to rebuild - in detail - both paradigms, nor to reconstruct one but, in a sense, my work will be a completely partial objective is to demonstrate how the paradigm is more profitable russell not only to make a coherent semantic theory for propositional attitudes2 but also to predict the behavior of a rational subject thing, completely innovative, given the repeated objections in contemporary literature3. At the end of this paper will be drafted a proposal to build a consistent model to predict the behavior,of a rational agent, based on a referential theory of propositional attitudes. (shrink)

Scholars working in philosophy of action still struggle with the freedom/determinism dichotomy that stretches back to Hellenist philosophy and the metaphysics that gave rise to it. Although that metaphysics has been repudiated in current philosophy of mind and cognitive science, the dichotomy still haunts these fields. As such, action is understood as distinct from movement, or motion. In early China, under a very different metaphysical paradigm, no such distinction is made. Instead, a notion of self-caused (...) movement, or spontaneity, is elaborated. In this article a general conception of spontaneity from early Daoism is explained, detailing its constituent aspects. Similar notions appeared from time to time in Western philosophy, and these instances are pursued, exploring how their instantiations differed from Daoist spontaneity and why. Based on these approximate examples of spontaneity and on early Daoist spontaneity, new criteria are postulated for a plausible theory of action that dispenses with presuppositions that eventuate in a freedom/determinism dichotomy, and instead the possibility is offered of a general model of action that can be applied smoothly across current philosophical and cognitive scientific subdisciplines. (shrink)

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the experimental philosophy of action, focusing on the various different accounts of the Knobe Effect.

Since the beginning of the 20th Century to the present day, it has rarely been doubted that whenever formal aesthetic methods meet their iconological counterparts, the two approaches appear to be mutually exclusive. In reality, though, an ahistorical concept is challenging a historical analysis of art. It is especially Susanne K. Langer´s long-overlooked system of analogies between perceptions of the world and of artistic creations that are dependent on feelings which today allows a rapprochement of these positions. Krois’s insistence on (...) a similar point supports this analysis. - I - Unbestritten bis heute gilt, formwissenschaftliche und ikonologische Methoden scheinen sich grundsätzlich auszuschließen, da die ersteren auf ahistorischen und die letzteren auf historischen Grundlagen aufbauen. Dem entgegen soll mit diesem Beitrag gezeigt werden, wie insbesondere die Forschungen Susanne K. Langers und ergänzend diejenigen von John M. Krois eine Annäherung beider Positionen ermöglichen. (shrink)

Is the thought that having a reason for action can also be the cause of the action for which it is the reason coherent? This is an attempt to say exactly what is involved in such a thought, with special reference to the case of con-reasons, reasons that count against the action the agent eventually choses.

The aim of this article is to discuss aspects of the teaching of philosophy in basic education in light of the concept of action set forth in chapter V of Human Condition of Hannah Arendt, identified in the revelation of the agent through discourse and action. We suggest the reflection of the concept of action as motivating consciousness for the philosophy teaching investing in educational policies that consider diversity as a favorable element for the construction (...) of knowledge between teachers and students. We’re here in an adverse movement to the technicist practices, that invest in sterile experiments, fated to the mechanism of relations. For we believe that Philosophy Teaching besides being one constant invite to reflection is also a stimulus to human freedom tha can be can be driven by the resourcefulness of more stimulating teaching practices. Based on activities experienced during philosophy classes in basic education, we present some reflections in favor of plurality in semi public space favoring perspectives of philosophy teaching from philosophizing in the classroom. (shrink)

A comparison of disjunctive theories of action and perception. The development of a theory of action that warrants the name, a disjunctive theory. On this theory, there is an exclusive disjunction: either an action or an event (in one sense). It follows that in that sense basic actions do not have events intrinsic to them.

Most work at the intersection of law and the philosophy of action focuses on criminal responsibility. Unfortunately, this focus has been at the expense of reflecting on how the philosophy of action might help illuminate our understanding of issues in civil law. In this essay, focusing on Anglo-American jurisprudence, we examine the conditions under which a party to a legal agreement is deemed to have the capacity required to be bound by that agreement. We refer to (...) this condition as the capacity condition. We begin by showing how recent work on the metaphysics of powers might ground an account of the role of capacities in the metaphysics of intentional agency. After discussing the capacity to contract in Anglo-American jurisprudence, we show how the general ontology of capacities and agency sketched can ground and help clarify legal thinking about capacity. We argue that when we couple our understanding of capacity with relevant recent data from developmental neuropsychology, a lacuna in Anglo-American contract law becomes evident. Specifically, it appears that persons in early adulthood do not clearly satisfy the conditions requisite for them to satisfy the capacity condition. In the light of this, we sketch some potential solutions that are compatible with existing legal standards and would contribute to a more consistent application of the capacity condition in contract law. (shrink)

How can we explain the intentional nature of an expert’s actions, performed without immediate and conscious control, relying instead on automatic cognitive processes? How can we account for the differences and similarities with a novice’s performance of the same actions? Can a naturalist explanation of intentional expert action be in line with a philosophical concept of intentional action? Answering these and related questions in a positive sense, this dissertation develops a three-step argument. Part I considers different methods of (...) explanations in cognitive neuroscience (Bennett & Hacker’s philosophical, conceptual analysis; Marr’s three levels of explanation; Neural Correlates of Consciousness research; mechanistic explanation), defending ‘mechanistic explanation’ as a method that provides the necessary tools for integrating interdisciplinary insights into human action. Furthermore, a dynamic, explanatory mechanism allows the assessment of the impact of learning and development on expert action in a valuable way that other methods don’t. Part II continues by scrutinizing several cognitive neuroscientific theories of learning and development (neuroconstructivism; dual-processing theories; simulation theory; extended mind/cognition hypothesis), arguing for the complex interactions between different types of processing and different action representations involved in expert action performances. Moreover, according to our discussion of a particular ‘simulation theory’ these interactions can be influenced in several ways with the use of language, allowing an agent to configure a specific action representation for performance at a later stage. The results of Parts I and II are then applied in Part III to a parallel discussion of philosophical analyses of intentional action (discussing i.a. Frankfurt, Bratman, Pacherie and Ricoeur) and cognitive neuroscientific insights in it. Both approaches are found to converge in emphasizing the importance for an expert to develop stable patterns of actions that comply maximally not only with his intentions, but also with his motor expertise and with situational conditions. Consequently, his actions – automatic, or not – rely on this ‘sculpted space of actions’. (shrink)

My primary aim is to defend a nonreductive solution to the problem of action. I argue that when you are performing an overt bodily action, you are playing an irreducible causal role in bringing about, sustaining, and controlling the movements of your body, a causal role best understood as an instance of agent causation. Thus, the solution that I defend employs a notion of agent causation, though emphatically not in defence of an account of free will, as most (...) theories of agent causation are. Rather, I argue that the notion of agent causation introduced here best explains how it is that you are making your body move during an action, thereby providing a satisfactory solution to the problem of action. (shrink)

A con-reason is a reason which plays a role in motivating and explaining an agent's behaviour, but which the agent takes to count against the course of action taken. Most accounts of motivating reasons in the philosophy of action do not allow such things to exist. In this essay, I pursue two aims. First, I argue that, whatever metaphysical story we tell about the relation between motivating reasons and action, con- reasons need to be acknowledged, as (...) they play an explanatory role not played by pro- reasons. Second, I respond to an argument recently developed by David-Hillel Ruben to the effect that a causal theory of action – still known as ‘the standard story’ – cannot account for con- reasons. His argument attempts to show that a fundamental principle of the causal theory cannot be reconciled with the role con- reasons play in a certain kind of imagined case. I first argue that a causal theorist is not, in fact, committed to the problematic. (shrink)

The theory and philosophy of artificial intelligence has come to a crucial point where the agenda for the forthcoming years is in the air. This special volume of Minds and Machines presents leading invited papers from a conference on the “Philosophy and Theory of Artificial Intelligence” that was held in October 2011 in Thessaloniki. Artificial Intelligence is perhaps unique among engineering subjects in that it has raised very basic questions about the nature of computing, perception, reasoning, learning, language, (...) action, interaction, consciousness, humankind, life etc. etc. – and at the same time it has contributed substantially to answering these questions. There is thus a substantial tradition of work, both on AI by philosophers and of theory within AI itself. - The volume contains papers by Bostrom, Dreyfus, Gomila, O'Regan and Shagrir. (shrink)

Despite the importance of the variational principles of physics, there have been relatively few attempts to consider them for a realistic framework. In addition to the old teleological question, this paper continues the recent discussion regarding the modal involvement of the principle of least action and its relations with the Humean view of the laws of nature. The reality of possible paths in the principle of least action is examined from the perspectives of the contemporary metaphysics of modality (...) and Leibniz's concept of essences or possibles striving for existence. I elaborate a modal interpretation of the principle of least action that replaces a classical representation of a system's motion along a single history in the actual modality by simultaneous motions along an infinite set of all possible histories in the possible modality. This model is based on an intuition that deep ontological connections exist between the possible paths in the principle of least action and possible quantum histories in the Feynman path integral. I interpret the action as a physical measure of the essence of every possible history. Therefore only one actual history has the highest degree of the essence and minimal action. To address the issue of necessity, I assume that the principle of least action has a general physical necessity and lies between the laws of motion with a limited physical necessity and certain laws with a metaphysical necessity. (shrink)

The question ' What is Philosophy? ' is a peculiar kind of question for SSB. He has got his own view regarding the nature of philosophy. For him it is a kind of intellectual exercise which takes place all over the world in different time periods irrespective of the geographical limit, race-limit, etc. This is a human expression as well as an endeavor and has got its own significance in the history of mankind. This activity of producing (...) class='Hi'>philosophy is an apex intellectual exercise. For him Philosophy is an action. It is not just contemplation and speculation in air. He does not allow the word ' speculation ' to be applied for this activity since he believes to be an action oriented study in the true sense of the term. For him,it is a worldview expressed by sensible, articulated, neat, sensitive humans in entire human race. He analyses philosophical terms in traditional ways and interprets them in modern idiom with special reference to cultures in and civilizations in the world. (shrink)

This paper proposes an application of Enrique Dussel’s ethics of liberation to an issue of crucial importance to US minorities: the debate on affirmative action. Over the past fifty years, this debate has been framed in terms of the opposition between advocates of affirmative action who claim that it is needed in order to achieve the integration and participation of traditionally oppressed groups to society without which there is no equality of rights, and critics who argue that affirmative (...) action violates equality by enforcing a double standard that undermines the ideal of a color-blind society. In this paper, I show how the basic principles of Dussel’s ethical theory (which are best expounded in his book Ethics of Liberation) allow us to address what I take to be the main demands of both advocates and critics of affirmative action in a satisfactory way. (shrink)

This paper situates Wittgenstein in what is known as the causalism/anti-causalism debate in the philosophy of mind and action and reconstructs his arguments to the effect that reasons are not a species of causes. On the one hand, the paper aims to reinvigorate the question of what these arguments are by offering a historical sketch of the debate showing that Wittgenstein's arguments were overshadowed by those of the people he influenced, and that he came to be seen as (...) an anti-causalist for reasons that are in large part extraneous to his thought. On the other hand, the paper aims to recover the arguments scattered in Wittgenstein's own writings by detailing and defending three lines of argument distinguishing reasons from causes. The paper concludes that Wittgenstein's arguments differ from those of his immediate successors; that he anticipates current anti-psychologistic trends; and that he is perhaps closer to Davidson than historical dialectics suggest. (shrink)

Lloyd Jones’s *The Book of Fame*, a novel about the stunningly successful 1905 British tour of the New Zealand rugby team, represents both skilled group action and the difficulty of capturing it in words. The novel’s form is as fluid and deceptive, as adaptable and integrated, as the sweetly shaped play of the team that became known during this tour for the first time as the All Blacks. It treats sport on its own terms as a rich world, a (...) set of bodily skills, and an honest profession in itself. A reading of *The Book of Fame* can contribute to the interdisciplinary study of literature and cognition, exemplifying two-way ‘exchange values’. On the one hand, we gain insights into the nature of skilful group agency, of distinct forms and at distinct timescales, by focussing on the precise forms taken by the All Blacks’ creation of space. Here, we treat The Book of Fame as a brilliant evocation of features of collective thought, movement, and emotion that both everyday and scientific inquiry can easily miss. On the other hand, we also read back into the novel a subtle, fascinated interrogation of the mechanisms by which small groups form, evolve, and act. In this more ambitious mode of analysis, we use independently motivated theoretical concerns to help us see real features of the literary work that might otherwise remain invisible. We focus on the relationship between skilful performance and collective action. These topics fall outside the ambit of much current work by literary theorists using cognitive research, who tend to focus on theory of mind and modularity, metaphor and blending, emotion and empathy, consciousness and concepts, representation and so on. But skilled performance and collective action comprise surprisingly lively research fields across the sciences, from neuropsychology to philosophy of mind and cognitive anthropology. These areas of inquiry may provide even more productive avenues for future work in the interfield of literary and cultural theory and the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

Practices – specific, recurrent types of human action and activity – are perhaps the most fundamental "building blocks" of social reality. This book argues that the detailed empirical study of practices is essential to effective social-scientific inquiry. It develops a philosophical infrastructure for understanding human practices, and argues that practice theory should be the analytical centrepiece of social theory and the philosophy of the social sciences. -/- What would social scientists’ research look like if they took these insights (...) seriously? To answer this question, the book offers an analytical framework to guide empirical research on practices in different times and places. The author explores how practices can be identified, characterised and explained, how they function in concrete contexts and how they might change over time and space. -/- The Constitution of Social Practices lies at the intersection of philosophy, social theory, cultural theory and the social sciences. It is essential reading for scholars in social theory and the philosophy of social science, as well as the broad range of researchers and students across the social sciences and humanities whose work stands to benefit from serious consideration of practices. (shrink)

The Philosophy of Social Science: A Contemporary Introduction examines the perennial questions of philosophy by engaging with the empirical study of society. The book offers a comprehensive overview of debates in the field, with special attention to questions arising from new research programs in the social sciences. The text uses detailed examples of social scientific research to motivate and illustrate the philosophical discussion. Topics include the relationship of social policy to social science, interpretive research, action explanation, game (...) theory, social scientific accounts of norms, joint intentionality, reductionism, causal modeling, case study research, and experimentation. (shrink)

Thomas Reid thinks of natural philosophy as a purely nomothetic enterprise but he maintains that it is proper for natural philosophers to employ causal terminology in formulating their explanatory claims. In this paper, I analyze this puzzle in light of Reid's distinction between efficient and physical causation – a distinction he grounds in his strict understanding of active powers. I consider several possible reasons that Reid may have for maintaining that natural philosophers ought to employ causal terminology and suggest (...) that the underlying rationale for his views is his understanding of the aims of explanation and their connection to the interests of human agents. The ultimate aim of knowing the causes of phenomena is to mollify the natural intellectual curiosity of human inquirers and provide guidance that insures successful action. The discovery of laws governing phenomena fulfills this aim and, as such, it is appropriate for natural philosophers to employ causal terminology. (shrink)

Philosophers and scientists have across the ages been amazed about the fact that development and learning often lead to not just a merely incremental and gradual change in the learner but sometimes to a result that is strikingly different from the learner’s original situation: amazed, but at times also worried. Both philosophical and cognitive neuroscientific insights suggest that experts appear to perform ‘different’ tasks compared to beginners who behave in a similar way. These philosophical and empirical perspectives give some insight (...) into what happens when a novice is transitioning to a stage of expertise. Generally, this implies that increased skill and expertise support better results and a more flexible performance, in part because these allow an agent to withdraw part of her attention and other cognitive resources from the tasks involved, enabling her to devote those resources to supporting, or completely different, tasks. As positive as these developments appear, these changes have also raised concerns. The main concern is whether gaining expertise is like raising a ‘cognitive monster’ which escapes the individual’s conscious control and influences her actions with undesirable automatisms. If so, we should ask ourselves whether experts are capable of taming this monster. The answer appears initially not to be positive. Indeed, it has been noted that since it is difficult for experts to withhold automatic responses this can lead to inflexibility or performance that is only optimal under certain conditions, because it is limited to a specific domain, often context-dependent, biased and inflexible. In what follows, I will consider this challenge of protecting expertise and harnessing this brittleness from philosophical and cognitive neuroscientific perspectives. Taking into account that action is in general determined by a multitude of factors, with learning and development affecting how these factors exert their influence, a philosophical question is how this complex and dynamic process can be explained and subsequently, how controlling it might be understood. First, though, I will present the issue at hand more closely: should we appreciate expertise if it is similar to growing a ‘cognitive monster’? Second, I will introduce the framework of a “Sculpted Space of Actions” (Keestra, 2014), which I developed in order to explain how the challenge of selecting an adequate option for action is facilitated by expertise as it helps to constrain the space of potential action options. Subsequently, the question is raised of how such a Sculpted Space of Actions influences an expert’s engagement with specific situations, like teaching students in a classroom setting. It will be argued that a well prepared expert—teacher or otherwise— is not only able to rely upon her routines but will at the same time be more perceptive and attentive to unforeseen events and actions, according to the recent cognitive neuroscientific theory of Predictive Processing. Integrating the theory of Predictive Processing with the Sculpted Space of Actions framework, I conclude that expertise contributes to adaptive and flexible responses to specific contexts, yet only if it is associated with explicit planning and articulation of situation specific intentions—the latter effectively putting the cognitive monster at rest for a while. (shrink)

Proprioception is usually used in reference to body movement and the self-perception of body movement. Proprius in Latin means “one’s own,” or “self.” It refers to the physical knowledge acquired, say, in the process of doing a particular activity, such as riding a bicycle, for instance. You can be told how to ride a bicycle, and this may be of some help. But in the end, it’s the physical knowledge and not the mere theoretical knowledge that enables you to ride (...) your bike. David Bohm, a world-renowned theoretical physicist, applied this notion of proprioception to the movement of thought, the process of thought. In On Dialogue, he contends that thinking can become aware of its own movement and aware of itself in action: -/- “Proprioception” is a technical term – you could also say “self-perception of thought,” “self-awareness of thought,” or “thought is aware of itself in action.” Whatever terms we use, I am saying: thought should be able to perceive its own movement, be aware of its own movement. In the process of thought there should be the awareness of that movement, of the intention to think, and of the result which the thinking produces. -/- This opens the door to an understanding of thinking as a process like any other physical process, such as riding a bicycle. We usually think of thinking as an abstract process – one of learning abstract knowledge and how to apply that knowledge. And this is what we are primarily taught in school. Unfortunately, some methods used in doing philosophy with children focus too much on strictly developing abstract critical thinking skills. -/- In doing philosophy with children, I am interested in focusing on the process of thinking in the process of thinking. In this way, it is also different from metacognition, which tends to focus on the ability to self-correct in response to the self-assessment toward the completion of a task. (shrink)

This dissertation examines the relationship that exists between two distinct and seemingly incompatible bodies of scholarship within the field of contemporary philosophy of technology. The first, as argued by postmodern pragmatist Barry Allen, posits that our tools and what we make with them are epistemically important; disputing the idea that knowledge is strictly sentential or propositional, he claims instead that knowledge is the product of a performance that is both superlative and artefactual, rendering technology importantly world-constituting. The second, as (...) argued by Heidegger and his inheritors, is that technology is ontologically problematic; rather than technology being evidence of performative knowledge, it is instead existentially threatening by virtue of the fact that it changes the tenor of our relationship with the world-as-given. Despite the fact that these claims seem prima facie incompatible, I argue that they may be successfully reconciled by introducing a third body of scholarship: the philosophy of photography. For it is the case, I argue, that although we, qua human beings, occupy lifeworlds that are necessarily constituted by technology, technology also induces a kind of phenomenological scepticism: a concern that mediated action precludes us from the possibility of authentic experience. Arguing in favour of the sentiment that photographs serve as a kind of phenomenal anchor—a kind of machine for living—I claim that photographic images provide a panacea to this existential concern: despite being epistemically problematic, it is this selfsame epistemic “specialness” of photographs that forces us to phenomenologically recommit, if only temporarily, to the world in a serious way. Consequently, it is my belief that an analysis of our artefacts and the way they function is fundamentally incomplete without an analysis of the epistemic and ontological problems introduced of the photographic image; as I will demonstrate, the photographic image casts an extremely long shadow over the philosophy of technology. (shrink)

This chapter argues that scientific and philosophical progress in our understanding of the living world requires that we abandon a metaphysics of things in favour of one centred on processes. We identify three main empirical motivations for adopting a process ontology in biology: metabolic turnover, life cycles, and ecological interdependence. We show how taking a processual stance in the philosophy of biology enables us to ground existing critiques of essentialism, reductionism, and mechanicism, all of which have traditionally been associated (...) with substance ontology. We illustrate the consequences of embracing an ontology of processes in biology by considering some of its implications for physiology, genetics, evolution, and medicine. And we attempt to locate the subsequent chapters of the book in relation to the position we defend. (shrink)

Abstract -/- This paper contains the philosophy and metaphysics of space and time and its connections with modern physics and psychology. I don’t claim to defend any novel position in that controversy, or to defend any standard positions in a novel way. Still less do I pretend to offer some promising surveys in the nature of time by standing in a position and accessing some methods to correlate those in the light of physics. My motive includes addressing some general (...) problems of time in different perspectives of human epistemology. One among them is the divergence of physical and common sense view of time which then addresses the issue of the psychological time, the one I am curious about. -/- Since physics deals only with the notion of ‘objective time’, I find it necessary to include the subjective sense also in to the four dimensional space-time. With such an understanding of metric it is possible extend the philosophy of physics in Galilean relativity beyond that of Einstenian one. This is achieved by solving the problem of causality in special relativity and by respecting the observer in action. In this current investigation of time, what I am looking is for temporal points in complex number plane where different observers differ not only when they are in motion but also when they are in rest such that the physical and psychological domain converges with the information carried out by light signals in two different time axes. (shrink)

In philosophy of action, we typically aim to explain action by appealing to conative attitudes whose contents are either logically consistent propositions or can be rendered as such. Call this “the logical criterion.” This is especially difficult to do with clear-minded, intentional incontinence since we have to explain how two judgments can have non-contradicting contents yet still aim at contradictory outcomes. Davidson devises an innovative way of doing this but compromises his ability to explain how our better (...) judgments can cause our continent behaviors. In this essay, I preserve Davidson’s approach to the logical criterion but deviate from his broader theory of action by developing a default-interventionist dual systems theory of action. To do this, I focus on the dynamical relationship between System 1 and System 2: the logical construction of value judgments in System 2 from System 1 and the imaginative construction of non-propositional conative attitudes in System 1 from System 2. I draw on Street’s Humean constructivism and Peacocke’s theory of imagination for logical and imaginative construction, respectively. Within this framework, I provide a new definition of continence and incontinence that satisfies the logical criterion and explains how our better judgments can cause our continent behaviors. (shrink)

This paper criticizes an influential argument from Thomas Nagel’s THE POSSIBILTIY OF ALTRUISM, an argument that plays a foundational role in the philosophies of (at least) Philippa Foot, John McDowell and Jonathan Dancy. Nagel purports to prove that a person can be can be motivated to perform X by the belief that X is likely to bring about Y, without a causally active or biffy desire for Y. If Cullity and Gaut are to be believed (ETHICS AND PRACTICAL REASONING) this (...) is widely regarded within the practical reasoning industry as an established fact. My thesis is a simple one. Nagel’s argument is an abject failure and the philosophies that are founded on it are built upon sand. There is a little bit of rather amateurish X-Phi at the end, but I don’t want readers to get too excited about this as it is essentially icing on the cake. This paper is not primarily an exercise in Experimental Philosophy but in Baby Logic, and it’s central thesis is a logical one, namely that Nagel (to put the point politely) fails to prove his thesis. (shrink)

According to the standard view in philosophy, intentionality is the mark of genuine action. In psychology, human cognition and agency are now widely explained in terms of the workings of two distinct systems (or types of processes), and intentionality is not a central notion in this dual-system theory. Further, it is often claimed, in psychology, that most human actions are automatic, rather than consciously controlled. This raises pressing questions. Does the dual-system theory preserve the philosophical account of intentional (...) action? How much of our behavior is intentional according to this view? And what is the role of consciousness? I will propose here a revised account of intentional action within the dual-system framework, and we will see that most of our behavior can qualify as intentional, even if most of it is automatic. An important lesson will be that philosophical accounts of intentional action need to pay more attention to the role of consciousness in action. (shrink)

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 (...) —that is, the degree of control an agent possesses or exercises in a given circumstance—to vary. Finally, I demonstrate the usefulness of the account on offer by showing how it generates a solution to a long-standing problem for causalist theories of action, namely, the problem of deviant causation. (shrink)

Our paper serves as an introduction to a budding field: the philosophy of mind-wandering. We begin with a philosophical critique of the standard psychological definitions of mind-wandering as task-unrelated or stimulus-independent. Although these definitions have helped bring mind-wandering research onto centre stage in psychology and cognitive neuroscience, they have substantial limitations that researchers must overcome to move forward. Specifically, the standard definitions do not account for (i) the dynamics of mind wandering, (ii) task-unrelated thought that does not qualify as (...) mind-wandering, and (iii) the ways that mind-wandering can be task-related. We then survey three philosophical accounts that improve upon the current psychological definitions. We first present our account of mind-wandering as “unguided thinking”. Next we review Thomas Metzinger’s view that mind-wandering can be defined as thought lacking meta-awareness and cognitive agency, as well as Peter Carruthers’s and Fabian Dorsch’s definitions of mind-wandering as disunified thinking. We argue that these latter views are inadequate, and we show that our definition of mind-wandering as unguided thinking is not only conceptually and phenomenologically precise but also can be operationalized in a principled way for empirical research. (shrink)

‘Attempted negligence’ is a category of criminal offense that many jurists and philosophers have law have deemed conceptually incoherent. In his Attempts: In the Philosophy of Action and the Criminal Law, Gideon Yaffe challenges this dismissal, anchoring his argument in cases of what he calls ‘mental self-management’ in which agents plan to bring about that they perform unintentional actions at a later time. He plausibly argues that mental self-management-type attempted negligence is possible. However, his account raises the question (...) whether such attempts can be successful: whether, in other words, attempts to perform unintentional actions at a later time could issue in actions that are, indeed, unintentional. Intuitively, at least, it would seem that we should answer in the affirmative. However, that answer poses problems for a plausible and widely-held account of intentional action. Al Mele, responding to Yaffe’s account, has pointed out this problem without, I think, providing a satisfactory resolution. I propose another way of vindicating the possibility of successful attempted negligence with small, if significant, revision to the standard view of intentional action. In these cases, I argue, agents fail to act intentionally because they render themselves, through their acts of self-management, unaware that they are successfully executing their intentions. Moreover, I argue that these agents’ intentions to bring about that they perform unintentional actions do not commit them to acting intentionally because of the nature of intentions to bring about actions. I offer an account of the intention to bring about that one A’s and defend it against some objections. (shrink)

There is a growing body of evidence on the influences of automatic and unconscious processes on our actions. Here I introduce some representative examples of this growing body of evidence, chosen so as to form a diverse group of related mindless phenomena: habits, skills, priming and nudges (Section 1). I then argue that this evidence challenges traditional belief-desire-based approaches in the philosophy of action (Sections 2 and 3). I further discuss a recently proposed solution to this challenge, Gendler’s (...) Alief, finding it wanting (Section 4). I conclude by sketching my own alternative solution, based on the old story of Buridan’s ass (Section 5). (shrink)

There is a need to bring about a revolution in the philosophy of science, interpreted to be both the academic discipline, and the official view of the aims and methods of science upheld by the scientific community. At present both are dominated by the view that in science theories are chosen on the basis of empirical considerations alone, nothing being permanently accepted as a part of scientific knowledge independently of evidence. Biasing choice of theory in the direction of simplicity, (...) unity or explanatory power does not permanently commit science to the thesis that nature is simple or unified. This current ‘paradigm’ is, I argue, untenable. We need a new paradigm, which acknowledges that science makes a hierarchy of metaphysical assumptions concerning the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe, theories being chosen partly on the basis of compatibility with these assumptions. Eleven arguments are given for favouring this new ‘paradigm’ over the current one. (shrink)

The article aims at demonstrating that, by his teaching on human person and his action, St. John Paul II implicitly contributed to a resolution of the most serious problem of contemporary philosophy, which consists in separating wisdom from love and substituting wisdom with understanding or knowledge. The author concludes that John Paul II makes a persuasive contribution to recover philosophy as the love of wisdom by identifying truth in the area of freedom, self-fulfillment and conscience, and appealing (...) to man’s honesty and happiness. (shrink)

Experimental philosophers have gathered impressive evidence for the surprising conclusion that philosophers' intuitions are out of step with those of the folk. As a result, many argue that philosophers' intuitions are unreliable. Focusing on the Knobe Effect, a leading finding of experimental philosophy, we defend traditional philosophy against this conclusion. Our key premise relies on experiments we conducted which indicate that judgments of the folk elicited under higher quality cognitive or epistemic conditions are more likely to resemble those (...) of the philosopher. We end by showing how our experimental findings can help us better understand the Knobe Effect. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to offer a critical assessment of Buridan's proposed solution to the bridge-keeper paradox. First, I will outline his proposed solution to the paradox, and, second, carefully analyse each issue mentioned in the proposed solution. Finally, I will attempt to conclude that Burden has implicitly accepted a three-valued logic that does not allow him to conclude that Plato ought not do anything.

Профессиональная деятельность вполне развитого образованного человека, использующего по максимуму свой интеллект и знания на работе, остается, как правило, вне круга интересов современной философии сознания, которая анализирует главным образом элементарные мысли и действия. В данной работе предлагается единый подход к описанию как простейших, так и чрезвычайно сложных действий на основе синтетического концепта «мыследействие», объединяющего как ментальные, так и внешние аспекты действий. Генезис нового понятия рассматривается в свете холистических парадигм экстернализма и энактивизма. Professional activity of a fully developed educated individual getting the (...) most out of his knowledge and intellect at work has attracted as of yet little interest in modern cognitive science and philosophy of mind, whereas the main focus is on the analysis of elementary thoughts and actions. In this paper I propose a unified approach to both elementary and very complex actions based on a concept of “action-thoughts”, in which mental and physical aspects of actions are fused together. The genesis of this novel concept is presented in the light of holistic paradigms of externalism and enactivism. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show how Habermas used the writings of George Herbert Mead. This subject has already been examined by the critical literature; however, the originality of this analysis with respect to previous studies lies in its philological approach. The result of the research proves that the interest of Habermas towards the American social psychologist originates well before the Theory of Communicative Action and accompanies the elaboration of Habermas’ research programme for over two decades. It (...) is interesting to observe that the references to Mead’s writings continued to be very selective and focused on the same three particular areas: on the methodological level, around the problem of the foundation of the social sciences; on the theoretical level, around ontogenetic and phylogenetic development; on the moral level, around the justification of the discourse ethic and, more generally, the idea of a post-metaphysical concept of reason. This paper also shows the remarkable coherence with which Habermas is developing a general theory of society and a philosophy of rational discourse. (shrink)

The causal theory of action has been the standard view in the philosophy of action and mind. In this chapter, I will present responses to two challenges to the theory. The first says, basically, that there is no positive argument in favour of the causal theory, as the only reason that supports it consists in the apparent lack of tenable alternatives. The second challenge says that the theory fails to capture the phenomenon of agency, as it reduces (...) activity to mere happenings (events and event-causal processes). This is often referred to as the problem of "disappearing agency". My main aim is to show that there is no problem of disappearing agency, and we will see that my response to the first challenge will be conducive to this end. I will present a positive argument for the causal theory on the basis of considerations concerning the metaphysics of agency, and I will suggest that we "own" the agency that springs from our mental states and events "by default". (shrink)

This article argues for basic similarities between folkloric and literary narratives. It deals with the relation between narrative structure and the constituent sentences of the narrative text and proposes an adaptation of Hjelmslev's notion of connotative semiotics to account for this. It also draws upon philosophy of action and Austin's 'A Plea for Excuses'.

Richard Holton has presented an important criticism of two prominent accounts of action, a criticism that employs a notion of strength of will. Holton claims that these well-known accounts of action cannot explain cases in which an agent adheres to the dictates of a previous resolution in spite of a persistent desire to the contrary. In this chapter, I present an explanation and defense of Holton’s criticism of these accounts of action, and then I argue that while (...) Holton highlights a crucial deficiency in both, his own explanation of strength of will is problematic. (shrink)

A crucial socio-political challenge for our age is how to rede!ne or extend group membership in such a way that it adequately responds to phenomena related to globalization like the prevalence of migration, the transformation of family and social networks, and changes in the position of the nation state. Two centuries ago Immanuel Kant assumed that international connectedness between humans would inevitably lead to the realization of world citizen rights. Nonetheless, globalization does not just foster cosmopolitanism but simultaneously yields the (...) development of new group boundaries. Group membership is indeed a fundamental issue in political processes, for: “the primary good that we distribute to one another is membership in some human community” – it is within the political community that power is being shared and, if possible, held back from non-members. In sum, it is appropriate to consider group membership a fundamental ingredient of politics and political theory. How group boundaries are drawn is then of only secondary importance. Indeed, Schmitt famously declared that “[e]very religious, moral, economic, ethical, or other antithesis transforms into a political one if it is suffciently strong to group human beings e#ectively according to friend and enemy”. Even though Schmitt’s idea of politics as being constituted by such antithetical groupings is debatable, it is plausible to consider politics among other things as a way of handling intergroup di#erences. Obviously, some of the group-constituting factors are more easily discernable from one’s appearance than others, like race, ethnicity, or gender. As a result, factors like skin color or sexual orientation sometimes carry much political weight even though individuals would rather con!ne these to their private lives and individual identity. Given the potential tension between the political reality of particular groupmembership defnitions and the – individual and political – struggles against those definitions and corresponding attitudes, citizenship and civic behavior becomes a complex issue. As Kymlicka points out, it implies for citizens an additional obligation to non-discrimination regarding those groups: “[t]his extension of non-discrimination from government to civil society is not just a shift in the scale of liberal norms, it also involves a radical extension in the obligations of liberal citizenship”. Unfortunately, empirical research suggests that political intolerance towards other groups “may be the more natural and ‘easy’ position to hold”. Indeed, since development of a virtue of civility or decency regarding other groups is not easy, as it often runs against deeply engrained stereotypes and prejudices, political care for matters like education is justified. Separate schools, for example, may erode children’s motivation to act as citizens, erode their capacity for it and!nally diminish their opportunities to experience transcending their particular group membership and behave as decent citizens. This chapter outlines a possible explanation for such consequences. That explanation will be found to be interdisciplinary in nature, combining insights from political theory and cognitive neuroscience. In doing so, it does not focus on collective action, even though that is a usual focus for political studies. For example, results pertaining to collective political action have demonstrated that the relation between attitudes and overt voting behavior or political participation is not as direct and strong as was hoped for. Several conditions, including the individual’s experiences, self-interest, and relevant social norms, turned out to interfere in the link between his or her attitude and behavior. Important as collective action is, this chapter is concerned with direct interaction between agents and the in$uence of group membership on such interaction – in particular joint action. Although politics does include many forms of action that require no such physical interaction, such physical interaction between individuals remains fundamental to politics – this is the reason why separate schooling may eventually undermine the citizenship of its isolated pupils. This chapter will focus on joint action, de!ned as: “any form of social interaction whereby two or more individuals coordinate their actions in space and time to bring about a change in the environment”. Cognitive neuroscienti!c evidence demonstrates that for such joint action to succeed, the agents have to integrate the actions and expected actions of the other person in their own action plans at several levels of speci!city. Although neuroscienti!c research is necessarily limited to simple forms of action, this concurs with a philosophical analysis of joint action, which I will discuss below. (shrink)

In line with recent efforts to empirically study the folk concept of weakness of will, we examine two issues in this paper: (1) How is weakness of will attribution [WWA] influenced by an agent’s violations of best judgment and/or resolution, and by the moral valence of the agent’s action? (2) Do any of these influences depend on the cognitive dispositions of the judging individual? We implemented a factorial 2x2x2 between–subjects design with judgment violation, resolution violation, and action valence (...) as independent variables, and measured participants’ cognitive dispositions using Frederick’s Cognitive Reflection Test [CRT]. We conclude that intuitive and reflective individuals have two different concepts of weakness of will. The study supports this claim by showing that: a) the WWA of intuitive subjects is influenced by the action’s (and probably also the commitment’s) moral valence, while the WWA of reflective subjects is not; b) judgment violation plays a small role in the WWA of intuitive subjects, while reflective subjects treat resolution violation as the only relevant trait. Data were collected among students at two different universities. All subjects (N=710) answered the CRT. A three-way ANOVA was first conducted on the whole sample and then on the intuitive and reflective groups separately. This study suggests that differences in cognitive dispositions can significantly impact the folk understanding of philosophical concepts, and thus suggests that analysis of folk concepts should take cognitive dispositions into account. (shrink)