Abstract

The article is an attempt to formulate the conditions that must be fulfilled by human behavior in order that it qualify as action. These include consciousness and self-consciousness, the preservation of identity in time with regards to the future and the past, the ability to react to value, and autonomy with respect to the physical world. The author opposes behaviorism and psychoanalytic theories of behavior and action, and proposes a “deflationary” conception of human action. According to him there are few real actions in human life; these are internal actions, that is, conscious decisions made in the light of explicitly grasped values. External behavior are actions insofar as they are included within the scope of an action-related intention that is the result of a concrete decision.