Motor Intentions and Non-Observational Knowledge of Action : A Standard Story
Blomberg, Olle LU
and Brozzo, Chiara
(2017)
In Thought: A Journal of Philosophy
p.137-146
- Abstract
- According to the standard story given by reductive versions of the Causal Theory of Action, an action is an intrinsically mindless bodily movement that is appropriately caused by an intention. Those who embrace this story typically take this intention to have a coarse-grained content, specifying the action only down to the level of the agent’s habits and skills. Markos Valaris (2015) argues that, because of this, the standard story cannot make sense of the deep reach of our non-observational knowledge of action. He concludes that we therefore have to jettison its conception of actions as mindless bodily movements animated from the outside by intentions. Here we defend the standard story. We can make sense of the reach of non-observational... (More)
- According to the standard story given by reductive versions of the Causal Theory of Action, an action is an intrinsically mindless bodily movement that is appropriately caused by an intention. Those who embrace this story typically take this intention to have a coarse-grained content, specifying the action only down to the level of the agent’s habits and skills. Markos Valaris (2015) argues that, because of this, the standard story cannot make sense of the deep reach of our non-observational knowledge of action. He concludes that we therefore have to jettison its conception of actions as mindless bodily movements animated from the outside by intentions. Here we defend the standard story. We can make sense of the reach of non-observational knowledge of action once we reject the following two assumptions: (i) that an intended habitual or skilled action is a so-called basic action—that is, an action that doesn’t involve any finer-grained intentions—and (ii) that an agent, in acting, is merely executing one intention rather than a whole hierarchy of more or less fine-grained intentions. We argue that (i) and (ii) are false. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/5a509a98-0e3e-446a-8684-c212e0f6cc11
- author
- Blomberg, Olle
LU
and Brozzo, Chiara
- organization
- publishing date
- 2017-09
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- Thought: A Journal of Philosophy
- pages
- 137 - 146
- publisher
- Wiley-Blackwell
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85029397418
- wos:000409449300001
- ISSN
- 2161-2234
- DOI
- 10.1002/tht3.249
- project
- The Nature of Intentional Joint Action: Coordination, Responsibility and Participant ́s Knowledge
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 5a509a98-0e3e-446a-8684-c212e0f6cc11
- date added to LUP
- 2017-07-04 14:56:34
- date last changed
- 2022-04-25 01:06:49
@article{5a509a98-0e3e-446a-8684-c212e0f6cc11,
abstract = {{According to the standard story given by reductive versions of the Causal Theory of Action, an action is an intrinsically mindless bodily movement that is appropriately caused by an intention. Those who embrace this story typically take this intention to have a coarse-grained content, specifying the action only down to the level of the agent’s habits and skills. Markos Valaris (2015) argues that, because of this, the standard story cannot make sense of the deep reach of our non-observational knowledge of action. He concludes that we therefore have to jettison its conception of actions as mindless bodily movements animated from the outside by intentions. Here we defend the standard story. We can make sense of the reach of non-observational knowledge of action once we reject the following two assumptions: (i) that an intended habitual or skilled action is a so-called basic action—that is, an action that doesn’t involve any finer-grained intentions—and (ii) that an agent, in acting, is merely executing one intention rather than a whole hierarchy of more or less fine-grained intentions. We argue that (i) and (ii) are false.}},
author = {{Blomberg, Olle and Brozzo, Chiara}},
issn = {{2161-2234}},
language = {{eng}},
pages = {{137--146}},
publisher = {{Wiley-Blackwell}},
series = {{Thought: A Journal of Philosophy}},
title = {{Motor Intentions and Non-Observational Knowledge of Action : A Standard Story}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/tht3.249}},
doi = {{10.1002/tht3.249}},
year = {{2017}},
}