A problem for causal theories of action

Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 84 (1):84–108 (2003)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Philosophical accounts of "action" standardly take an action to be a doing which _satisfies some description that is semantically related to the content of a propositional attitude of the subject's which _explains why that doing occurred. Causal theories of action require that the explanation in question must involve the causation of action-doings by propositional attitudes (typically intentions, volitions, or combinations of belief and desire). I argue that there are actions whose status, as such, cannot be acknowledged by any causal theory, since no such theory can allow that they fulfill the satisfaction condition

Categories

Keywords

Reprint years

DOI

10.1111/1468-0114.00164

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 91,963

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

My notes

Similar books and articles

Causal Theories Of Mind: Action, Knowledge, Memory, Perception, And Reference.Steven Davis (ed.) - 1961 - Ny: De Gruyter.
An action theoretic problem for intralevel mental causation.Andrei A. Buckareff - 2012 - Philosophical Issues 22 (1):89-105.
Whither Action theory.John M. Connolly - 1991 - Journal of Philosophical Research 16:85-106.
Using stable model semantics (SMODELS) in the causal calculator (CCALC).Semra Dogandag, F. Nur Alpaslan & Varol Akman - 2001 - In Semra Dogandag, F. Nur Alpaslan & Varol Akman (eds.), Proceedings of 10th Turkish Symposium on Artificial Intelligence and Neural Networks (TAINN).
Does Action Theory Rest on a Mistake?Alicia Juarrero Roqué - 1987 - Philosophy Research Archives 13:587-612.
Intentional Action, Causation, and Deviance.Peter Brian Barry - manuscript
Bending it like beckham: Movement, control and deviant causal chains.Markus E. Schlosser - 2010 - Analysis 70 (2):299-303.
Neurosciences of action and noncausal theories.Don Gustafson - 2007 - Philosophical Psychology 20 (3):367–374.
Basic deviance reconsidered.Markus E. Schlosser - 2007 - Analysis 67 (3):186–194.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
64 (#253,119)

6 months
8 (#362,282)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

The Varieties of Reference.Gareth Evans - 1982 - Oxford: Oxford University Press. Edited by John Henry McDowell.
Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind.John R. Searle - 1983 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Ontological relativity and other essays.Willard Van Orman Quine (ed.) - 1969 - New York: Columbia University Press.
Mind and World.John Henry McDowell - 1994 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind.John R. Searle - 1983 - New York: Oxford University Press.

View all 48 references / Add more references