Pub Date : 2021-09-02DOI: 10.1080/13869795.2021.1957201
Raul Hakli, P. Mäkelä, L. O’Brien
This special section originates from a workshop `New Horizons in Action and Agency’ that we organized in August 2019 at the University of Helsinki, Finland. The aim of the workshop was to provide a venue in which a small number of participants could enjoy in-depth discussion of innovative work on action and agency. Kirk Ludwig and Alfred Mele were our keynote speakers, and in addition, we invited submissions on such topics as mental action, trying, action sentences, intending, self-control, and practical reasoning, among others. Our aim at the workshop and in this selection of papers is to re-visit some fundamental issues in the philosophy of agency. These issues primarily concern the nature and range of the mental in intentional agency. For example, trying is central to the performance of intentional action. But what is it to try to do something? Should we, as some philosophers have argued, regard it as a sui generis mental action? Deciding is also central to many, if not all, cases of intentional action, but again, what it is remains a matter of controversy. And there is ongoing controversy about what it can tell us about the nature of intentional action. Turning our attention to intentions to act and intentions in action, how do these guide the course of the bodily movements that satisfy them? And indeed, what is the relationship between their coarse-grained content and the finely developed skills that agents sometimes exercise in the performance of intentional action? Finally, such reflection on trying, deciding, intending, and on the nature of mental action more generally, provokes the question of whether or not intentional action is corporeal in nature. Commonsense may suggest that it is, and physicalist views of mind and action argue that it is, but is that correct? This question and others will, we hope, be of interest to the readers of Philosophical Explorations. In the first article, ‘Let me go and try’, Kirk Ludwig gives a deflationary account of trying according to which trying is not a specific type of action. Instead, any action that is done with an intention can be called trying: To say that a person tried to φ means that she did something with the intention of φ-ing. Ludwig is thus opposed to views that take trying to be something substantial, like a mental action. According to Ludwig, there is no such thing as trying, rather, there is a way of talking about action that uses the term ‘try’, and the function of such talk is to be able to talk about the aim of some action without implying that the aim is achieved. He defends his account against arguments that purport to show that there is no entailment from claims about trying to claims about doing something with an intention, and he uses his analysis to explain what is odd in talk about trying to try. Ludwig considers a potential problem for his account in
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Pub Date : 2021-09-02DOI: 10.1080/13869795.2021.1957205
Michael Smith
ABSTRACT The view that actions are bodily movements, also known as corporealism, was much discussed in the latter half of the twentieth century, but now commands fewer adherents. The present paper argues that earlier proponents of corporealism missed the crucial feature of actions that tells in favour of actions being bodily movements. Focusing on this crucial feature provides us with the resources for responding to arguments against corporealism and in favour of alternative accounts.
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Pub Date : 2021-09-02DOI: 10.1080/13869795.2021.1957203
A. Mele
ABSTRACT To decide to A, as I conceive of it, is to perform a momentary mental action of forming an intention to A. I argue that ordinary instances of practical deciding, so conceived, falsify the following two theses: (1) Necessarily, S intentionally A-s only if S intends to A; (2) In every actual case of intentionally A-ing, the agent intends to A. But I also argue that actions of some other types falsify these theses. Practical deciding is not unique in this respect. In another respect, however, it may be unique. It may be the only source of counterexamples to the thesis that, in any actual case of intentional action, some relevant intention is at work. In addition, actual instances of deciding to A may differ from other actual basic actions in that whereas the latter are successful attempts to A, actual agents never try to decide to A (as opposed to trying to decide what to do and to trying to bring it about that they decide to A).
{"title":"Deciding: how special is it?","authors":"A. Mele","doi":"10.1080/13869795.2021.1957203","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13869795.2021.1957203","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT To decide to A, as I conceive of it, is to perform a momentary mental action of forming an intention to A. I argue that ordinary instances of practical deciding, so conceived, falsify the following two theses: (1) Necessarily, S intentionally A-s only if S intends to A; (2) In every actual case of intentionally A-ing, the agent intends to A. But I also argue that actions of some other types falsify these theses. Practical deciding is not unique in this respect. In another respect, however, it may be unique. It may be the only source of counterexamples to the thesis that, in any actual case of intentional action, some relevant intention is at work. In addition, actual instances of deciding to A may differ from other actual basic actions in that whereas the latter are successful attempts to A, actual agents never try to decide to A (as opposed to trying to decide what to do and to trying to bring it about that they decide to A).","PeriodicalId":46014,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Explorations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13869795.2021.1957203","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48207604","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-02DOI: 10.1080/13869795.2021.1957202
K. Ludwig
ABSTRACT This paper argues for a deflationary account of trying on which ‘x tried to ϕ’ abbreviates ‘x did something with the intention of ϕ-ing’, where ‘did something’ is treated as a schematic verb. On this account, tryings are not a distinctive sort of episode present in some or all cases of acting. ‘x tried to ϕ’ simply relates some doing of x’s to a further aim x had, which may or may not have been achieved. Consequently, the analysis of ‘x tried to ϕ’ adds nothing to our basic understanding of the nature of action or agency. The account handles examples of naked trying, trying without acting – for example, trying but failing to move when paralyzed – by construing ‘did something’ as a schematic verb for a broader class of purposive events than actions, subsuming inter alia the formation of intentions-in-action. It gives a technical sense to ‘doing with the intention of ϕ-ing’ so that it includes any doing that can be construed as for the purpose of executing the intention of ϕ-ing. This subsumes as a limiting case the formation of an intention-in-action to ϕ, which is for the purpose of executing that very intention.
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Pub Date : 2021-08-06DOI: 10.1080/13869795.2021.1963820
Alireza Kazemi
ABSTRACT In what sense can one claim that intentional explanations are essentially normative, given that people’s actions and thinking are replete with various irrationalities, yet are still pretty well explained by this explanatory framework? This article provides a novel response to this enduring objection. First, following Brandom, it is suggested that, to understand the normativity of intentional states, we should countenance and distinguish between two normative categories of commitment and entitlement, only the former of which is argued to be essential for intentional explanations. Conflating these two normative dimensions is noted to be one of the main sources of the objections leveled against the view. Second, it is shown that the committive dimension is rich and flexible enough to accommodate all the apparently problematic cases.
{"title":"Still committed to the normativity of folk psychology","authors":"Alireza Kazemi","doi":"10.1080/13869795.2021.1963820","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13869795.2021.1963820","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In what sense can one claim that intentional explanations are essentially normative, given that people’s actions and thinking are replete with various irrationalities, yet are still pretty well explained by this explanatory framework? This article provides a novel response to this enduring objection. First, following Brandom, it is suggested that, to understand the normativity of intentional states, we should countenance and distinguish between two normative categories of commitment and entitlement, only the former of which is argued to be essential for intentional explanations. Conflating these two normative dimensions is noted to be one of the main sources of the objections leveled against the view. Second, it is shown that the committive dimension is rich and flexible enough to accommodate all the apparently problematic cases.","PeriodicalId":46014,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Explorations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13869795.2021.1963820","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41972718","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-28DOI: 10.1080/13869795.2021.1957204
M. Mylopoulos
ABSTRACT In this paper, I make a case for the modularity of the motor system. I start where many do in discussions of modularity, by considering the extent to which the motor system is cognitively penetrable, i.e. the extent to which its processing and outputs are causally influenced, in a semantically coherent way, by states of central cognition. I present some empirical findings from a range of sensorimotor adaptation studies that strongly suggest that there are limits to such influence under certain conditions. These results cry out for an explanation. In the remainder of the paper, I provide one: The motor system is cognitively penetrable, but nonetheless modular along broadly Fodorian lines, insofar as it is informationally encapsulated. This means that its access is limited to its own proprietary database in computing its function from input to output, which does not include the information stored in central cognition. I then offer a model of action control, from distal intention to action outcomes, that further helps to illustrate this picture and can accommodate the target empirical findings.
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Pub Date : 2021-06-13DOI: 10.1080/13869795.2021.1937681
K. Kristjánsson
ABSTRACT This paper is about the interplay between intuition and reason in Aristotle’s moral psychology. After discussing briefly some other uses of ‘intuition’ in Aristotle’s texts, I look closely at (a) Aristotle’s notion of virtue and emotion (Section 2); (b) affinities, or lack thereof, between Aristotle’s view and the Two-System (dual-process) model of moral judgement that has made headlines in contemporary moral psychology (Section 3); and some complications of the Aristotelian picture related to the specifics of moral functioning at different developmental levels (Section 4). The lesson drawn is that, despite recent attempts to co-opt Aristotle to the Two-System camp, he was, for all intents and purposes, a One-System theorist with respect to the relationship between intuitive emotion and reason. In that sense, his theories are in line with recent findings in neuroscience which show how emotion stimulates reflection rather than directly driving action. Even the motivational make-up of the ‘incontinent’ does not (as might perhaps be urged) provide a persuasive counter-example to a One-System interpretation of Aristotle.
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Pub Date : 2021-06-11DOI: 10.1080/13869795.2021.1937679
Leonhard Menges
ABSTRACT Recently, many authors have argued that claims about determinism and free will are situated on different levels of description and that determinism on one level does not rule out free will on another. This paper focuses on Christian List’s version of this basic idea. It will be argued for the negative thesis that List’s account does not rule out the most plausible version of incompatibilism about free will and determinism and, more constructively, that a level-based approach to free will has better chances to meet skeptical challenges if it is guided by reasoning at the moral level – a level that has not been seriously considered so far by proponents of this approach.
{"title":"Free will, determinism, and the right levels of description","authors":"Leonhard Menges","doi":"10.1080/13869795.2021.1937679","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13869795.2021.1937679","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Recently, many authors have argued that claims about determinism and free will are situated on different levels of description and that determinism on one level does not rule out free will on another. This paper focuses on Christian List’s version of this basic idea. It will be argued for the negative thesis that List’s account does not rule out the most plausible version of incompatibilism about free will and determinism and, more constructively, that a level-based approach to free will has better chances to meet skeptical challenges if it is guided by reasoning at the moral level – a level that has not been seriously considered so far by proponents of this approach.","PeriodicalId":46014,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Explorations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13869795.2021.1937679","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48692309","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-06DOI: 10.1080/13869795.2021.1937680
M. Maiese
ABSTRACT Most philosophical discussions of psychopathy have centered around its significance in relation to empathy, moral cognition, or moral responsibility. However, related questions about the extent to which psychopaths are capable of exercising autonomous agency have remained underexplored. Two central conditions for autonomous agency that are highlighted by many existing accounts include (1) reasons-responsivity, and (2) authenticity. However, available evidence indicates that psychopaths are inadequately responsive to reasons in general and other-regarding reasons in particular, and also seem to lack a set of enduring concerns that might reveal which desires and attitudes are truly theirs. This leads them to behave impulsivity and to disregard the interests and concerns of others. Drawing from the enactivist approach in philosophy of mind and the notions of habit and affordance, I argue that both their prudential deficits and apparent moral failings are rooted, at a deeper level, in a lack of well-developed affective framing patterns and a corresponding disruption to selective attention.
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Pub Date : 2021-05-09DOI: 10.1080/13869795.2021.1923783
Casey Woodling
ABSTRACT A serious problem for adverbialism about intentionality is the many-property problem, one major aspect of which is the claim that natural inferences between thought contents are blocked if adverbialism is true. Kriegel (2007. “Intentional Inexistence and Phenomenal Intentionality.” Philosophical Perspectives 21: 307–340. doi: 10.1111/j.1520-8583.2007.00129.x., 2008. “The Dispensability of (Merely) Intentional Objects.” Philosophical Studies 141: 79–95. doi: 10.1007/s11098-008-9264-7., 2011. The Sources of Intentionality. New York: Oxford UP) argues that the determinable-determinate relation can be pressed into service by adverbialists to respond to this problem. Grzankowski (2018. “The determinable-determinate relation can’t save adverbialism.” Analysis 78: 45–52. doi: 10.1093/analys/anx068) argues that this doesn’t work because when applied to intentional properties absurd results follow and thus the victory is pyrrhic. In this paper, I examine how we must understand the inferences at the heart of the many-property problem if we are to avoid attributing unwanted assumptions to adverbialists. With this understanding in place, there is a reply to Grzankowski on behalf of the adverbialist that holds that the determinable-determinate relation can be used as one tool among others for assessing the thought content of others. So, Grzankowski’s objection to Kriegel can be met. In the end, however, this entire dialectic is a dead end because it treats the ascriptions of intentional states as fused adverbs forming compound adverbial modifiers, and these fused adverbs lack compositionality and are syntactically simple. As such, interpreters cannot decompose the linguistic content of adverbialist ascriptions, which is nearly always a necessary step in assessing the thought content of others. So, the determinable-determinate reply actually fails because we do need these ascriptions to be subject to compositionality. In the end, adverbialists must opt for a structural approach to the many-property problem, as recently seen in the work of Banick (2021. “How to be an adverbialist about phenomenal intentionality.” Synthese 198: 661–686. doi: 10.1007/s11229-018-02053-0) and D'Ambrosio (2021. “The many-property problem is your problem, too.” Philosophical Studies 178: 811–832. doi:10.1007/s11098-020-01459-2).
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