The basic subject matter of the philosophy of action is a pair of questions: (1) What are actions? (2) How are actions to be explained? The questions call, respectively, for a theory of the nature of action and a theory of the explanation of actions. Donald Davidson has articulated and defended influential answers to both questions. Those answers are the primary focus of this chapter.

Gideon Yaffe presents a ground-breaking work which demonstrates the importance of philosophy of action for the law. Many people are serving sentences not for completing crimes, but for trying to. Yaffe's clear account of what it is to try to do something promises to resolve the difficulties courts face in the adjudication of attempted crimes.

The aim of this book is to provide an in-depth account of Hegel’s writings on human action as they relate to contemporary concerns in the hope that it will encourage fruitful dialogue between Hegel scholars and those working in the philosophy of action. During the past two decades, preliminary steps towards such a dialogue were taken, but many paths remain uncharted. The book thus serves as both a summative document of past interaction and a promissory note of (...) things to come. We begin this introduction with some general words regarding the philosophy of action before singling out reasons for exploring Hegel’s thought in relation to it. We next present a brief overview of studies conducted to this day, followed by a thematic appraisal of the contributions appearing in this volume. (shrink)

The aim of this book is to provide an in-depth account of Hegel’s writings on human action as they relate to contemporary concerns in the hope that it will encourage fruitful dialogue between Hegel scholars and those working in the philosophy of action. During the past two decades, preliminary steps towards such a dialogue were taken, but many paths remain uncharted. The book thus serves as both a summative document of past interaction and a promissory note of (...) things to come. We begin this introduction with some general words regarding the philosophy of action before singling out reasons for exploring Hegel’s thought in relation to it. We next present a brief overview of studies conducted to this day, followed by a thematic appraisal of the contributions appearing in this volume. (shrink)

The latest offering in the highly successful Oxford Readings in Philosophy series, The Philosophy of Action features contributions from twelve leading figures in the field, including: Robert Audi, Michael Bratman, Donald Davidson, Wayne Davis, Harry Frankfurt, Carl Ginet, Gilbert Harman, Jennifer Hornsby, Jaegwon Kim, Hugh McCann, Paul Moser, and Brian O'Shaughnessy. Alfred Mele provides an introductory essay on the topics chosen and the questions they deal with. Topics addressed include intention, reasons for action, and the nature (...) and explanation of internal action. A selective bibliography is included as a guide to further reading. Comprehensive and up-to-date, this collection provides an accessible and stimulating introduction for readers interested in the philosophy of action, the philosophy of mind, and moral philosophy. (shrink)

This new textbook is an exceptionally clear and concise introduction to the philosophy of action, suitable for students interested in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of social sciences. Moya begins by considering the problem of agency: how are we to understand the distinction between actions and happenings, between actions we perform and things that happen to us? Moya outlines and examines a range of philosophical responses to this problem. He also develops his own original (...) view, treating the analysis of meaningful action as the basis for understanding the distinctive interplay of agency, intention and commitment. Subsequent chapters examine recent attempts to integrate our understanding of action with the view of the world provided by the natural sciences. The work of Donald Davidson is examined in detail. Moya also discusses the views of many other authors who have contributed to recent debates in the philosophy of action, including Anscombe, Churchland, Harman, Hornsby, Goldman and O'Shaughnessy. (shrink)

Like many people, I was initially attracted to free will issues – at first embracing hard determinism, as part of a general rejection of doctrines associated with religion, though exposure to Kant’s views in my first philosophy course made me begin to consider nonreligious grounds for an indeterminist conception of free action. Of course, Kant also takes belief in God and immortality as presupposed by moral agency, but I was never much moved by those arguments. On free will, (...) though, I thought seeing my acts as determined would give me a reason to expend less effort on them. (shrink)

This book offers an accessible and inclusive overview of the major debates in the philosophy of action. It covers the distinct approaches taken by Donald Davidson, G.E.M. Anscombe, and numerous others to answering questions like "what are intentional actions?" and "how do reasons explain actions?" Further topics include intention, practical knowledge, weakness and strength of will, self-governance, and collective agency. With introductions, conclusions, and annotated suggested reading lists for each of the ten chapters, it is an ideal introduction (...) for advanced undergraduates as well as any philosopher seeking a primer on these issues. (shrink)

Philosophers of action tend to take for granted the concept of basic actions – actions that are done at will, or directly – as opposed to others that are performed in other ways. This concept does foundational work in action theory; many theorists, especially causalists, take part of their task to be showing that normal, complex actions necessarily stem from basic ones somehow. The case for the concept of basic actions is driven by a family of observations and (...) a cluster of closely related anti-infinite regress arguments. I review this case in the work of Arthur Danto, Donald Davidson, and Jennifer Hornsby – three of the most important developers of the concept – and find it lacking. I conclude by sketching the possibility of non-foundationalist action theory. (shrink)

_The Philosophy of Action: An Anthology_ is an authoritative collection of key work by top scholars, arranged thematically and accompanied by expert introductions written by the editors. This unique collection brings together a selection of the most influential essays from the 1960s to the present day. An invaluable collection that brings together a selection of the most important classic and contemporary articles in philosophy of action, from the 1960’s to the present day No other broad-ranging and (...) detailed coverage of this kind currently exists in the field Each themed section opens with a synoptic introduction and includes a comprehensive further reading list to guide students Includes sections on action and agency, willing and trying, intention and intentional action, acting for a reason, the explanation of action, and free agency and responsibility Written and organised in a style that allows it to be used as a primary teaching resource in its own right. (shrink)

This is the third volume of the new series _Social, Political, & Legal Philosophy_ and it deals with the relationship between Law and The Philosophy of Action. In this volume a number of legal issues are illuminated by resource to the analysis of mental concepts. Issues in Criminal Law, Contract Law, Acceptance of Legal Systems, and the nature of Legal Norms are some of the main issues dealt in the papers that constitute the volume. Conceptual analysis is used (...) and new overtures are made into current findings in the Cognitive Sciences. All of this results in illuminating accounts that throw new light on traditional fundamental legal issues. This volume is a precursor in the powerful theorizing of the Cognitive Sciences that is being brought to bear in the Philosophy of Mind and in the theory of Law, and this theorizing will increase in the coming years. (shrink)

An oft-rehearsed objection to the claim that an intention can give one reasons is that if an intention could give us reasons that would allow an agent to bootstrap herself into having a reason where she previously lacked one. Such bootstrapping is utterly implausible. So, intentions to φ cannot be reasons to φ. Call this the bootstrapping objection against intentions being reasons. This essay considers four separate interpretations of this argument and finds they all fail to establish that non-akratic, nonevil, (...) and deliberatively sound intentions cannot be reasons. The first argument is the argument from evil intentions, the second is the argument from akratic intentions, the third is the argument from errors in deliberation, and the last is what I call the ‘wizardry’ argument. This ‘argument’, put forward most clearly by John Broome, claims that intentions are so insubstantial that were they on their own reasons for action, that would amount to creating something out of nothing and that is impossible. The essay argues that the claim that intentions are insubstantial is too strong a premise to put forward without argument. For there are other attitudes that are on their own sufficient to generate reasons, such as loving attitudes. The essay then argues that the bootstrapping objection’s status as dogma in the philosophy of action has led to insufficient attention being paid to the entirely reasonable question of whether intentions are sufficiently like other reason-giving attitudes, such as loving and valuing. It may turn out that, just as loving someone can give the loving person a reason to act in a certain, so too can intending to do something give someone a reason to act in a certain way, but we cannot effectively engage this question without first giving up our commitment to the bootstrapping objection as a central “insight” in philosophy of action. The essay concludes by proposing two research questions that are opened up by the abandonment of the bootstrapping objection as dogma, and proposes that we turn our philosophical attentions to those questions. (shrink)

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)

Broadly characterized, the philosophy of action encompasses a host of problems about the nature and scope of human action and agency, including, but not limited to, intention and intentional action, the ontology of action, reason-explanations of action, motivation and practical reason, free will and moral responsibility, mental agency, social action, controlling attitudes, akrasia and enkrasia, and many other issues. Philosophy of Action: 5 Questions is a collection of short interviews based on (...) 5 questions presented to some of the most influential and prominent scholars in this philosophical field. We hear their views on philosophy of action, its aim, scope, use, the future, and how their work fits in these respects. (shrink)

These readings include traditional and current analyses of the notion of human action and its importance in psychology, morals, and the law.

This book is a development of ideas originally set out in the author’s well known articles "Basic Actions" and "What We can Do." The announced aim of the book is to isolate a class of actions that are basic in the sense that we do not do them by doing some other action. As Danto expresses it in the preface, he wants to "wash away the contextual features which convert movements into gestures and vest the disposition of limbs with (...) high spiritual significance." Danto compares doing this to eliminating the conceptual or interpretative component of perception so as to leave a purely sensory component. Indeed, the main strategy of this book is to exploit the analogies he sees between knowings and doings: as there are basic actions, so there are basic cognitions, things we know without having to know something else; and as there are things we know only by knowing other things which are evidence for them, so there are things we do only by doing other things which are adequate to cause them. There is also analogy in that descriptions of actions, like ascriptions of knowledge, are intensional—in Danto’s phrase, they have a complex logical structure arising from the fact that they are at once about the world and about somebody’s representation of the world. The things in the world which the descriptions of basic actions are about are physical movements subject to the causal order and identified by their place in this order, but the fact that descriptions of them as actions are intensional means that they also somehow transcend the causal order, and are free. So man, by acting, as by knowing, has a foot in both the physical and spiritual realms.—M.H. (shrink)

This article provides an analysis of Muhammad Iqbal’s views on the notion of action in the context and light of Charles Taylor’s philosophy of action and attempts at constructing Iqbal’s own theory of action. Despite the fact that the Notion of action is one of the central issues of Iqbal’s philosophy, the literature on Iqbal lacks in the studies dealing with this notion in a philosophical context. The notion of action has also become (...) one of the popular topics of modern philosophy since the second half of the twentieth century. However, current discussions in this field present a narrow understanding of the term by ignoring non-western philosophers’ contribution to the field. Therefore, it is aimed at this study to contribute to the literature in three fields: to the literature of contemporary philosophy of action by highlighting the views of a Muslim philosopher on the notion of action, to the literature on Iqbal by examining one of his central concepts that deserves to be taken more seriously in a philosophical context, and finally to comparative philosophical studies by comparing the views of these two philosophers who have never been brought together in a study, and by developing a dialogue between them. (shrink)

This is the third volume of the new series Social, Political, & Legal Philosophy and it deals with the relationship between Law and The Philosophy of Action. In this volume a number of legal issues are illuminated by resource to the analysis of mental concepts. Issues in Criminal Law, Contract Law, Acceptance of Legal Systems, and the nature of Legal Norms are some of the main issues dealt in the papers that constitute the volume. Conceptual analysis is (...) used and new overtures are made into current findings in the Cognitive Sciences. All of this results in illuminating accounts that throw new light on traditional fundamental legal issues. This volume is a precursor in the powerful theorizing of the Cognitive Sciences that is being brought to bear in the Philosophy of Mind and in the theory of Law, and this theorizing will increase in the coming years. (shrink)

A study of the philosophical problems associated with the concept of action. Professor Danto is concerned to isolate logically the notion of a 'basic action' and to examine the way in which context and intention, for example, can convert physiological movements into significant actions. He finds many suggestive parallels between the concepts - the logical architecture - of action and cognition and in developing this theme he becomes involved in and proposes new approaches to various long-standing problems (...) connected with causality, determinism and materialism. As in his earlier books, Analytical Philosophy of History and Analytical Philosophy of Knowledge, Professor Danto places the discussion in a broad historical and philosophical perspective and brings to it a wide reading and an unusual range of interests. He is always prepared to venture novel ideas to stimulate further debate and research and the book as a whole is presented as an original contribution to a subject which is attracting increasing attention from philosophers and from psychologists with an interest in the conceptual assumptions behind their work. (shrink)

In terms of my own first-personal narrative, the most obvious proximal cause of my theorizing about agency was a graduate seminar on free will taught by Peter van Inwagen. It was my first semester of graduate school, and van Inwagen’s forceful presentation of incompatibilism made a big impression on me. I left that course thinking incompatibilism was both obvious and irrefutable. The only problem was that I didn’t stay at Notre Dame. I transferred to Stanford in the following year, where (...) I discovered the truth of a remark John Fischer once made: Indiana is for Incompatibilists and California is for Compatibilists. Some of the folks there who most influenced me, especially Michael Bratman and Ken Taylor, are thoroughgoing compatibilists. I was really struck by the fact that both of these smart, thoughtful guys seemed genuinely puzzled by the impulse to incompatibilism. I wasn’t entirely ready to give up on my incompatibilism (which was by then shifting from libertarianism to hard incompatibilism), but I felt a need to be able to find some way to reconcile it with an appreciation for the appeal that compatibilism clearly seemed to have for some otherwise compelling philosophers. And, so my interest in thinking about free agency and free action began to take root. So, that’s the intellectualized part of the story. But there is also the fact of my local conditions when all of this was going on. For good or ill, I kept taking seminars where the problem of free will would crop up in the course of things. Out of sheer laziness (or, as I like to think about it, out of a dimly sensed need to conserve my energies for later), I kept seizing on the topic as a subject matter for seminar papers, whether the course was on Hume, Aristotle, Nietzsche, philosophy of mind, or philosophy action. Thus, when it came time to write a dissertation, free will seemed like an obvious choice.. (shrink)

This volume is based on the lectures given in The Royal Institute of Philosophy's annual lecture series in London for 2015-2016. The papers collected here relate to action in contemporary philosophy. Issues discussed relate to freedom and responsibility, the relation between action and causation, and the connection between considerations of virtue and ethical concepts as applied to the notion of action.

Philosophy of action in the context of Classical China is radically different from its counterpart in the contemporary Western philosophical narrative. Classical Chinese philosophers began from the assumption that relations are primary to the constitution of the person, hence acting in the early Chinese context necessarily is interacting and co-acting along with others –human and nonhuman actors. This book is the first monograph dedicated to the exploration and rigorous reconstruction of an extraordinary strategy for efficacious relational action (...) devised by Classical Chinese philosophers in order to account for the interdependent and embedded character of human agency –what the author has denominated “adapting” or “adaptive agency” (yin 因). As opposed to more unilateral approaches to action also conceptualized in the Classical Chinese corpus, such as forceful and prescriptive agency, adapting requires great capacity of self and other-awareness, equanimity, flexibility, creativity, and response, which allows the agent to co-raise courses of action ad-hoc: unique and temporary solutions to specific, non-permanent, and non-generalizable life problems. Adapting is one of the world’s oldest philosophies of action, and yet it is shockingly new for contemporary audiences, who will find in it an unlikely source of inspiration to deal with our current global problems. This book explores the core conception of adapting both on autochthonous terms and by cross-cultural comparison, drawing on the European and Analytic philosophical traditions as well as on scholarship from other disciplines, opening a brand-new topic in Chinese and comparative philosophy. (shrink)

What is self-control? Does a person need to be conscious to act? Are delusions always irrational? Questions such as these are fundamental for investigations into action and rationality, as well as how we assign responsibility for wrongdoing and assess clinical symptoms. Bridging the gap between philosophy and psychology, this interdisciplinary collection showcases how empirical research informs and enriches core questions in the philosophy of action. -/- Exploring issues such as truth, moral judgement, agency, consciousness and cognitive (...) control, chapters offer an overview of the current state of research, present new empirical findings and identify where future experimental work can further advance the frontier between philosophy and psychology. This is an essential resource for anyone looking to better understand how science and philosophy can meaningfully inform our knowledge of human agency. (shrink)

Papers delivered at the joint meeting of the Hegel Society of America and the Hegel Society of Great Britain held at Merton College, Oxford, Sept. 1-4, 1981, to mark the 150th anniversary of Hegel's death. Includes bibliographical references and index.

A Companion to the Philosophy of Action offers a comprehensive overview of the issues and problems central to the philosophy of action. The first volume to survey the entire field of philosophy of action (the central issues and processes relating to human actions). Brings together specially commissioned chapters from international experts. Discusses a range of ideas and doctrines, including rationality, free will and determinism, virtuous action, criminal responsibility, Attribution Theory, and rational agency in (...) evolutionary perspective. Individual chapters also cover prominent historic figures from Plato to Ricoeur. Can be approached as a complete narrative, but also serves as a work of reference. Offers rich insights into an area of philosophical thought that has attracted thinkers since the time of the ancient Greeks. (shrink)

This article was conceived as a sequel to “The Humean Theory of Motivation.” The paper addresses various challenges to the standard account of the explanation of intentional action in terms of desire and means-end belief, challenges that didn’t occur to me when I wrote “The Humean Theory of Motivation.” I begin by suggesting that the attraction of the standard account lies in the way in which it allows us to unify a vast array of otherwise diverse types of (...) class='Hi'>action explanation. I go on to consider a range of other challenges to the standard account of the explanation of action: Rosalind Hursthouse’s challenge based on the possibility of what she calls “arational” actions (Hursthouse 1991); Michael Stocker’s challenge based on the idea that some explanations of action are nonteleological (Stocker 1981); Mark Platts’s challenge based on the idea that our evaluative beliefs can sometimes explain our actions all by themselves (Platts 1981); a voluntarist challenge based on the possibility of explaining actions by the exercise of self-control; and a challenge from Jonathan Dancy based on the idea that reasons can themselves sometimes explain actions all by themselves (Dancy 1994). (shrink)

A Companion to the Philosophy of Action offers a comprehensive overview of the issues and problems central to the philosophy of action. -/- * The first volume to survey the entire field of philosophy of action (the central issues and processes relating to human actions) * Brings together specially commissioned chapters from international experts * Discusses a range of ideas and doctrines, including rationality, free will and determinism, virtuous action, criminal responsibility, Attribution Theory, (...) and rational agency in evolutionary perspective * Individual chapters also cover prominent historic figures from Plato to Ricoeur * Can be approached as a complete narrative, but also serves as a work of reference * Offers rich insights into an area of philosophical thought that has attracted thinkers since the time of the ancient Greeks. (shrink)

The world’s major monotheistic religions typically maintain that God freely chose, in the libertarian sense, to create the universe for a reason or purpose. Philosophers of religion often argue that the idea that God makes a free choice to create for a purpose is deeply flawed. In parallel with these philosophers of religion, philosophers of action typically argue that the idea that human beings make free choices to act for purposes is also flawed. I begin my article by briefly (...) summarizing what is involved in the idea of a human agent freely choosing for a purpose. I then examine criticisms of this idea by philosophers of action and suggest how they might plausibly be rebutted. I conclude by suggesting that if these criticisms by philosophers of action are suspect, then there is good reason for thinking that the same or similar criticisms by philosophers of religion are suspect. (shrink)

What is self-control? Does a person need to be conscious to act? Are delusions always irrational? Questions such as these are fundamental for investigations into action and rationality, as well as how we assign responsibility for wrongdoing and assess clinical symptoms. Bridging the gap between philosophy and psychology, this interdisciplinary collection showcases how empirical research informs and enriches core questions in the philosophy of action. Exploring issues such as truth, moral judgement, agency, consciousness and cognitive control, (...) chapters offer an overview of the current state of research, present new empirical findings and identify where future experimental work can further advance the frontier between philosophy and psychology. Complete with chapter summaries, relevant case studies, a glossary and further reading lists at the end of each chapter, Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Action is an essential resource for anyone looking to better understand how science and philosophy can meaningfully inform our knowledge of human agency. (shrink)

Focusing on the recent work of Michael Bratman as emblematic of several important developments in the philosophy of action, I raise four questions that engage with a set of interlocking concerns about systemic functionalism in the philosophy of action. These questions are: (i) Are individual and institutional intentions the same kind of thing? (ii) Can the risk of proliferation of systemic functional explanations be managed? (iii) Is there an appealing basis for the apparent methodological individualism in (...) our theories of action and agency? and (iv) Why not, instead, pursue a methodologically anti-individualist and ecological approach to action and agency? The latter alternative, I suggest, offers a promising way to retain many of the core insights of the Bratmanian project while avoiding the difficulties inherent to some of the methodological presumptions of some strands of contemporary philosophy of action. (shrink)

This dissertation deals with the following three questions which will likely be classified as questions in different areas of specialization, the philosophy of action, comparative-historical studies, and ethics respectively: What is the essence of voluntary action? Do classical Chinese philosophers have the concept of voluntary action? What role does the concept of the will play in ethics? ;In this dissertation I argue for two related theses. As an answer to question 1, my first thesis is that (...) the essence of voluntary action is not the will. This thesis is the basis for my argument against a relativist answer to the question 2. Some scholars have argued that classical Chinese philosophers do not have the concept of voluntary action, because they do not have the concept of the will. Their argument is based on a false answer to question 1), i.e., the false idea that the essence of voluntary action is the will, which is exactly the opposite of my first thesis. So if my first thesis is true, their arguments would collapse. ;My second thesis is my answer to question 3 "If the will is not invented for a theory of voluntary action, what is it invented for?" My answer is the following: for a large class of cases---usually historical figures such as the early Wittgenstein, Augustine, Confucius and Mencius---in which we find the concept of the will, the will is invented for ethical purposes. ;The dissertation consists in two parts. Part I is my argument for the first thesis. My argument is based on the later Wittgenstein's work. I also show the limits of his arguments and how to fix them. In Part II, I show in details how the actual histories of the inventions of the concept of the will vary greatly from Augustine to the early Wittgenstein, and to Confucius and Mencius. The significance of the dissertation is that this diverse picture will help us imagine new possible forms of ethical life, which is, I believe, the purpose of historical-comparative studies. Or, indeed, the purpose of philosophy. (shrink)

Krausists followed a dialectical method in all their activities. It is an action plan in which theory and practice are established on a continuum. Since it summarizes all human activity, this dialectic implies a philosophy of action. The originality of this article lies precisely in offering an account of the philosophy of action implicit in the work of Krause, which has never before been made explicit. Therefore, the goal of this article is, on the one (...) hand, to isolate this dialectic in the texts of the Spanish Krausists, and, on the other hand, to demonstrate the traditional affirmation about the practical meaning of Krause’s philosophy, as shown in its Spanish version. This practical orientation of his thought was channelled through several disciplines and, especially, through the modern pedagogy known as active education. Throughout the article, I also show how to relate Krause’s philosophy to contemporary philosophical debates. (shrink)

We live in a world of technologies. Classical Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Technology, Episte- mology, etc. philosophical disciplines appear insufficient for valid reflections on today's world. The Philo- sophy of Engineering and Design (Technological) Actions is seen promising to become a fruitful field of philosophical reflections and is offered from the perspective of the Philosophy of Action and Agency (Practical Philosophy). The foundations of the latter are presented in Part II. In the Part I, (...) the Phi- losophy of Engineering and Design (Technological) Actions is outlined in a comparative with Philo- sophy of Technology, Humanities Philosophy of Technology, Philosophy of Engineering, Philosophy of Science, Epistemology, etc. plane. The paradoxes of E. Feenberg's technique, the interpretation of which is proposed in the part III, are involved for the illustrating of the maintained understanding. In the conclusive part (IV) the general danger of distortive philosophical understandings about the tech- nological common world of today are mentioned. (shrink)

Since Donald Davidson issued his challenge to anticausalism in 1963, most philosophers have espoused the view that our actions are causally explained by the reasons why we do them. This Davidsonian consensus, however, rests on a faulty argument. Davidson’s challenge has been met, in more than one way, by anticausalists such as C. Ginet, G. Wilson, and S. Sehon. Hence I endeavor to support causalism with a stronger argument. Our actions are correlated with our motivating reasons; to wit, we often (...) do what we have reason to do. In yet other words, we are often rational. Our frequent rationality is easily explained if causalism is correct, but looks like a staggering coincidence otherwise. Anticausalism thus appears to be ill-equipped to account for the very existence of rational behavior, and so far no attempts in this direction have succeeded. (shrink)

While the concept event has been an important tool in our thinking about causation and action, the concept process has not been appealed to so readily. However, recently, several philosophers have...

Accounts of human and animal action have been central to modern philosophy from Suarez and Hobbes in the sixteenth century to Wittgenstein and Anscombe in the mid-twentieth century via Locke, Hume, Kant, and Hegel, among many others. Philosophies of action have thus greatly influenced the course of both moral philosophy and the philosophy of mind. This book gathers together specialists from both the philosophy of action and the history of philosophy with the (...) aim of re-assessing the wider philosophical impact of action theory. It thereby explores how different notions of action, agency, reasons for action, motives, intention, purpose, and volition have affected modern philosophical understandings of topics as diverse as those of human nature, mental causation, responsibility, free will, moral motivation, rationality, normativity, choice and decision theory, criminal liability, weakness of will, and moral and social obligation. In so doing, it reinterprets the history of modern philosophy through the lens of action theory while also tracing the origins of contemporary questions in the philosophy of action back across half a millennium. This book was originally published as a special issue of Philosophical Explorations. (shrink)

Adapting is noteworthy not only for discussing a Chinese philosophy of action in the sense of efficacious action and freedom from constraint, but also for doing.

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)

I am working on a substantially revised second edition of this. It is due to be published by Palgrave in 2024.