Abstract

Distributed Cognition and the Will is a very ambitious collection of 13 essays exploring different facets of the relation between an “old problem” and a relatively recent field of studies . As Don Ross, one of the editors, points out in the very opening lines of the introduction, if there were a ranking of the major problems that have been discussed in roughly two and a half millennia of philosophical enquiry, the problem of the will would figure among the top hits. But recent studies and empirical work on cognition and behavioral sciences come to conclusions in stark contrast with the traditional notions of agency, free will and will-causes-action accounts. One of the authors’ opening claims illustrates the general spirit of the collection: P. S. Davies writes that “the traditional notions of agency are dead or dying and their replacements are yet to be born or yet to reach maturity” . These 13 essays are an interdisciplinary attempt to contribute to a better understanding of the flaws embedded in the classical conceptions of will and agency and to put forward some proposals for new or revised ones