What are the criteria people use when they judge that other people did something intentionally? This question has motivated a large and growing literature both in philosophy and in psychology. It has become a topic of particular concern to the nascent field of experimental philosophy, which uses empirical techniques to understand folk concepts. We present new data that hint at some of the underly- ing psychological complexities of folk ascriptions of intentional action and at dis- tinctions both between diverse concepts (...) and between associated mechanisms. (shrink)

The title of this book, Adventures of Ideas, bears two meanings, both applicable to the subject-matter.

Importance.--Expression.--Understanding.--Perspective.--Forms of process.--Civilized universe.--Nature lifeless.--Nature alive.--The aim of philosophy.

'...In these pages I consider Reason in its relation to these contrasted aspects of history. Reason is the self-discipline of the originative element in history. Apart from the operations of Reason, this element is anarchic.' -From the Summary.

This classic text in American Philosophy by one of the foremost figures in American philosophy offers a concise analysis of the various factors in human nature which go toward forming a religion, to exhibit the inevitable transformation of religion with the transformation of knowledge and to direct attention to the foundation of religion on our apprehension of those permanent elements by reason of which there is a stable order in the world, permanent elements apart from which there could be no (...) changing world. (shrink)

Al is nearly finished sweeping his kitchen floor when he notices, on a counter, a corkscrew that should be put in a drawer. He intends to put the corkscrew away as soon as he is finished with the floor; but by the time he returns the broom and dustpan to the closet, he has forgotten what he intended to do. Al knows (or has a true belief) that there is something he intended to do now in the kitchen. He gazes (...) around the room and tries to recall what it was. Within a minute or so, without seeing the corkscrew, Al recalls. He puts the corkscrew away. Did Al have an intention to put the corkscrew away that persisted from the time he acquired the intention until he put the corkscrew away? That is one of my guiding questions in this article. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

It is often suggested that our desires vary in motivational strength or power. In a paper expressing skepticism about this idea, Irving Thalberg asked what he described, tongue in cheek, as "a disgracefully naive question" (1985, p. 88): "What do causal and any other theorists mean when they rate the strength of our PAs," that is, our "desires, aversions, preferences, schemes, and so forth"? His "guiding question" in the paper seems straightforward (p. 98): "What is it for our motivational states (...) to have some degree of power to generate behavior?" Yet, he argued, ''as soon as we endeavor to clarify what philosophers of action and drive theorists in psychology mean by motivational strength, we run across one obscurity after another" (p. 103). This essay is an attempt to answer a more specific version of Thalberg's question. (shrink)

This article is a critical discussion of Derk Pereboom’s “disappearing agent objection” to event-causal libertarianism in his Free Will, Agency, and Meaning in Life. This objection is an important plank in Pereboom’s argument for free will skepticism. It is intended to knock event-causal libertarianism, a leading pro-free-will view, out of contention. I explain why readers should not find the objection persuasive.

There are intentional actions and unintentional actions. Do we ever perform actions that are neither intentional nor unintentional? Some philosophers have answered "yes" (Mele 1992; Mele and Moser 1994; Mele and Sverdlik 1996; Lowe 1978; Wasserman, forthcoming). That is, they have claimed that there is a middle ground between intentional and unintentional human actions.1 Motivation for this claim is generated by attention to a variety of issues, including two that are of special interest to experimental philosophers of action: the status (...) of side-effect actions, and the status of actions that are instances of luckily succeeding in doing something one is trying to do. This article explores the idea that there is a middle ground between intentional and unintentional human actions, paying special attention to the two issues just identified. The exploration is partly theoretical and partly empirical. Section 2 reports the results of two new studies designed to yield evidence about whether and to what extent nonspecialists recognize this middle ground. (shrink)

This article’s aim is to shed light on direct control, especially as it pertains to free will. I sketch two ways of conceiving of such control. Both sketches extend to decision making. Issues addressed include the problem of present luck and the relationship between direct control and complete control.

. I find it impossible to imagine that this book will not remain indefinitely the very best book of its sort."—Review of Metaphysics "The confrontation or conjunction of Ayer and Russell is a notable event and has produced a remarkable ...

This article addresses two influential lines of argument for what might be termed “scientific epiphenomenalism” about conscious intentions – the thesis that neither conscious intentions nor their physical correlates are among the causes of bodily motions – and links this thesis to skepticism about free will and moral responsibility. One line of argument is based on Benjamin Libet’s neuroscientific work on free will. The other is based on a mixed bag of findings presented by social psychologist Daniel Wegner. It is (...) argued that both lines of argument are unsuccessful. (shrink)

According to a traditional view of self-deception, the phenomenon is an intrapersonal analogue of stereotypical interpersonal deception. In the latter case, deceiversintentionallydeceive others into believing something,p, and there is a time at which the deceivers believe thatpis false while their victims falsely believe thatpis true. If self-deception is properly understood on this model, self-deceivers intentionally deceive themselves into believing something,p, and there is a time at which they believe thatpis false while also believing thatpis true.

In this chapter, drawing partly on some attractions to soft libertarianism and on a libertarian approach articulated in Mele (1996) to accommodating successful Frankfurt-style cases, I motivate the thesis that at least some human beings sometimes act freely than that no human being ever acts freely.

ABSTRACTHélène Landemore's Democratic Reason develops one important line of research in political epistemology, which we can define as the study of the ways in which distributed knowledge is put together for the purposes of making political decisions. Landemore argues for the epistemic benefits of cognitive diversity in political decision procedures in a condition of epistemic equality—where there are no experts. Given this omission, her approach has undeveloped potential for a second line of research in political epistemology, on the problem of (...) aggregating asymmetrically distributed knowledge, i.e., integrating democratic reason with expertise. (shrink)

This article has two aims: to articulate the main lines of argument for Libet's and Wegner's theses, and to survey philosophical responses in the present century to the argumentation. Because a proper understanding of the scientific argumentation at issue requires attention to a raft of data and the experiments that generate them, reasonable constraints on space preclude discussion of philosophical responses before 2000.

This article describes three experiments that would advance our understanding of the import of data already generated by scientific work on free will and related issues. All three can be conducted with existing technology. The first concerns how reliable a predictor of behavior a certain segment of type I and type II RPs is. The second focuses on the timing of conscious experiences in Libet-style studies. The third concerns the effectiveness of conscious implementation intentions. The discussion of first two experiments (...) highlights some important problems with certain inferences made on the basis of existing data in scientific work on free will. The discussion of the third calls attention to powerful evidence that conscious intentions sometimes are among the causes of corresponding actions. This evidence has been largely ignored in the literature on free will. (shrink)

"A lively discussion of the life and writings of one of the premier revolutionaries of the eighteenth century. [Ayer's] chapters alternate between the externals of Paine's life and career in England, America, and France and analyses of Common Sense, The Rights of Man, The Age of Reason, other significant but less well known writings, and Paine's anticipations of the welfare state."--History: Reviews of New Books "[An] exciting book about Paine's life and principles."--Christoper Hitchens, Newsday.

Some scientists have reported what they regard as evidence of indeterministic brain processes that influence behavior (Brembs 2011, Maye et al. 2007). How do these reports bear on the positive side of libertarianism about free will? That is an approximation of my guiding question in this article. I make the question more precise in section 1, in light of some conceptual and scientific background. In the remainder of the article, I seek—and eventually offer—an answer. Topics dis-cussed along the way include (...) control, Frankfurt-style cases, and whether event-causal libertarianism is an uninhabitable half-way house between compatibilism and agent-causal libertarianism. (shrink)