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Agent, Action, and Reason

Agent, Action, and Reason PDF Author: Robert W. Binkley
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442633654
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 250

Book Description
This volume contains the papers and commentaries presented at the fourth philosophy colloquium at the University of Western Ontario in November 1968. The papers examine, from different points of view, the central problems in the philosophy of action. They include: “Agency” by Donald Davidson with comments by James Cornman; “On the Logic on International Action” by Roderick Chisholm with comments by Bruce Aune and a reply by Roderick Chisholm; “Wanting: Some Pitfalls” by R.M. Hare with comments by David Gauthier and D.F. Pears; “Two Problems about Reasons for Actions” by D.F. Pears with comments by Irving Thalberg. Also included is an extensive bibliography of recent work in the philosophy of action. The contributors are all well known for their work in this branch of philosophy; their papers present a cross section of the best work being done in the area at the present time.

Agent, Action, and Reason

Agent, Action, and Reason PDF Author: Robert W. Binkley
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442633654
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 250

Book Description
This volume contains the papers and commentaries presented at the fourth philosophy colloquium at the University of Western Ontario in November 1968. The papers examine, from different points of view, the central problems in the philosophy of action. They include: “Agency” by Donald Davidson with comments by James Cornman; “On the Logic on International Action” by Roderick Chisholm with comments by Bruce Aune and a reply by Roderick Chisholm; “Wanting: Some Pitfalls” by R.M. Hare with comments by David Gauthier and D.F. Pears; “Two Problems about Reasons for Actions” by D.F. Pears with comments by Irving Thalberg. Also included is an extensive bibliography of recent work in the philosophy of action. The contributors are all well known for their work in this branch of philosophy; their papers present a cross section of the best work being done in the area at the present time.

Essays on Actions and Events

Essays on Actions and Events PDF Author: Donald Davidson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199246262
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 347

Book Description
Donald Davidson has prepared a new edition of his classic 1980 collection of Essays on Actions and Events, including two additional essays.

Understanding Human Agency

Understanding Human Agency PDF Author: Erasmus Mayr
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191619264
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
Our self-understanding as human agents includes a commitment to three crucial claims about human agency: that agents must be active, that actions are part of the natural order of the universe, and that intentional actions can be explained by the agent's reasons for acting. While all of these claims are indispensable elements of our view of ourselves as human agents, they are in continuous conflict and tension with one another, especially once one adopts the currently predominant view of what the natural order must be like. One of the central tasks of philosophy of action consists in showing how, despite appearances, these conflicts can be resolved and our self-understanding as agents be vindicated. The mainstream of contemporary philosophy of action holds that this task can only be fulfilled by an event-causal reductive view of human agency, paradigmatically embodied in the so-called 'standard model' developed by Donald Davidson. Erasmus Mayr, in contrast, develops a new agent-causal solution to these conflicts and shows why this solution is superior both to event-causalist accounts and to Von Wright's intentionalism about agency. He offers a comprehensive theory of substance-causation on the basis of a realist conception of powers, which allows one to see how the widespread rejection of agent-causation rests on an unfounded 'Humean' view of nature and of causal processes. At the same time, Mayr addresses the question of the nature of reasons for acting and complements its substance-causal account of activity with a non-causal account of acting for reasons in terms of following a standard of success.

Being Realistic about Reasons

Being Realistic about Reasons PDF Author: T. M. Scanlon
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199678480
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 143

Book Description
Is what we have reason to do a matter of fact? If so, what kind of truth is involved, how can we know it, and how do reasons motivate and explain action? In this concise and lucid book T.M. Scanlon offers answers, with a qualified defence of normative cognitivism - the view that there are normative truths about reasons for action.

Reasons and Causes

Reasons and Causes PDF Author: A. Laitinen
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9780230580640
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Are the reasons for which we act the causes of our actions? In the nine essays collected here (including a major historical overview by the editors), experts in the field re-evaluate the history and current state of the reasons/causes debate.

Reason and Action

Reason and Action PDF Author: Bruce Aune
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401012717
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 218

Book Description
Philosophers writing on the subject of human action have found it tempting to introduce their subject by raising Wittgenstein's question, 'What is left over if you subtract the fact that my arm goes up from the fact that I raise my arm?' The presumption is that something of particular interest is involved in an action of raising an arm that is not present in a mere bodily movement, and the philosopher's task is to specify just what this is. Unfortunately, such an approach does not take us very far, since a person could properly be said to raise his (or her) arm while asleep or hypnotized even though he (or she) would not be performing an action in the sense of 'action' with which philosophers are particularly concerned. To avoid this kind of difficulty I shall approach the subject of human action is a more academic way: I shall expound some important rival theories of human action, and introduce the relevant issues by commenting critically on those theories. One of the issues I eventually introduce is a metaphysical one. A theory of action makes sense, I contend, only on the assumption that there are such 'things' as actions (or events). After considering some key arguments bearing on the issue I conclude that, as matters currently stand in philosophy, a metaphysically noncommittal attitude toward actions and events seems justified.

Action, Knowledge, and Will

Action, Knowledge, and Will PDF Author: John Hyman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198735774
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 270

Book Description
John Hyman explores central problems in philosophy of action and the theory of knowledge, and connects these areas of enquiry in a new way. His approach to the dimensions of human action culminates in an original analysis of the relation between knowledge and rational behaviour, which provides the foundation for a new theory of knowledge itself.

Action

Action PDF Author: Rowland Stout
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773585532
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 174

Book Description
By focusing on the idea that agency involves causal sensitivity to reasons, Rowland Stout shows how agency is one of the most useful ways into the philosophy of mind: if one can understand what it is to be a free and rational agent, then one can understand what it is to be a conscious subject of experience. Some of the questions considered include: Is all action intentional action? Is intentional action characterized by its relation with possible justification? Do beliefs motivate actions or do facts? What is the nature of the causal process of acting? Are intentions independent components in the explanation of action?

Libertarian Accounts of Free Will

Libertarian Accounts of Free Will PDF Author: Randolph Clarke
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780195306422
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 276

Book Description
This comprehensive study offers a balanced assessment of libertarian accounts of free will. Bringing to bear recent work on action, causation, and causal explanation, Clarke defends a type of event-causal view from popular objections concerning rationality and diminished control. He subtly explores the extent to which event-causal accounts can secure the things for the sake of which we value free will, judging their success here to be limited. Clarke then sets out a highly original agent-causal account, one that integrates agent causation and nondeterministic event causation. He defends this view from a number of objections but argues that we should find the substance causation required by any agent-causal account to be impossible. Clarke concludes that if a broad thesis of incompatibilism is correct - one on which both free will and moral responsibility are incompatible with determinism - then no libertarian account is entirely adequate.

The Second-Person Standpoint

The Second-Person Standpoint PDF Author: Stephen Darwall
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674034627
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 363

Book Description
Why should we avoid doing moral wrong? The inability of philosophy to answer this question in a compelling manner—along with the moral skepticism and ethical confusion that ensue—result, Stephen Darwall argues, from our failure to appreciate the essentially interpersonal character of moral obligation. After showing how attempts to vindicate morality have tended to change the subject—falling back on non-moral values or practical, first-person considerations—Darwall elaborates the interpersonal nature of moral obligations: their inherent link to our responsibilities to one another as members of the moral community. As Darwall defines it, the concept of moral obligation has an irreducibly second-person aspect; it presupposes our authority to make claims and demands on one another. And so too do many other central notions, including those of rights, the dignity of and respect for persons, and the very concept of person itself. The result is nothing less than a fundamental reorientation of moral theory that enables it at last to account for morality’s supreme authority—an account that Darwall carries from the realm of theory to the practical world of second-person attitudes, emotions, and actions.