Chisholm's theory of agency

Journal of Philosophy 74 (11):692-703 (1977)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The fundamental causal concept in Chisholm's theory of agency is that of causally contributing to, a generic concept covering both event-causal contributors (members of sets of nonredundant jointly sufficient conditions) and agent-causal contributors (not members of sets of jointly sufficient conditions). Chisholm's elucidation of agent-causation is explored and defended against objections. It is then argued that Chisholm's ontology, in particular in its treatment of the concept of an evert, generates difficulties for his theory of agency oi which two are explored: (i) that it is hard to reconcile with Chisholm's own apparent analysis of the distinction between intentional and unintentional actions; and (ii) that it entails that every causal contributing has an infinite set of causal contributors, which is in conflict with the principle that any set of nonredundant conditions that are jointly sufficient for the occurrence of an event are so by the nature of things, and not by virtue of some further event

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

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

Through your library

Similar books and articles

The philosophical papers of Alan Donagan.Alan Donagan - 1994 - Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Edited by Jeff Malpas.
On Roderick Chisholm.Matthew Davidson - 2009 - Philosophy Now 75:32-33.
The Uses and Abuses of Agency Theory.Joseph Heath - 2009 - Business Ethics Quarterly 19 (4):497-528.
Reflections on Human Agency.Roderick M. Chisholm - 1971 - Idealistic Studies 1 (1):33-46.
Stit and the language of agency.Michael Perloff - 1991 - Synthese 86 (3):379 - 408.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
269 (#68,820)

6 months
2 (#670,035)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

The Question of Iterated Causation.David Mark Kovacs - 2021 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 104 (2):454-473.
Thomas Reid on free agency.Timothy O'Connor - 1994 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 32 (4):605-622.
A probabilistic theory of causal necessity.Deborah A. Rosen - 1980 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 18 (1):71-86.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references