About this topic
Summary The Causal Theory of Action (CTA) is often referred to as "the standard story" of human action and agency in the philosophy of action. Strictly speaking, it is misleading to think of the CTA as a single theory of action. A better way to think about the CTA is in terms of a set of theories that bear a family resemblance by accepting the following schema about what makes some behavior count as an action and what explains an action: Any behavior A of an agent S is an action if and only if S's A-ing is caused in the right way and causally explained by some appropriate nonactional mental item(s) that mediate or constitute S's reasons for A-ing.
Key works Perhaps the touchstone essay for contemporary formulations of the CTA is Davidson 1963. For a review of the historical development of the CTA, including a discussion of the refinements of the CTA that have been offered, along with a survey of  some problems faced by the theory and proposed solutions, see the introductory essay in Aguilar & Buckareff 2010. For seminal recent refinements of the CTA, see Bishop 1990, Enc 2006, Mele 1992, Mele 2000, Mele 2003, and the essays in Aguilar & Buckareff 2010 .
Introductions For an accessible introduction to options in the theory of action, including variants of CTA, see the introduction to Aguilar & Buckareff 2010 and Brand 1979.

Show all references
Related categories
Siblings:See also:
242 found
Search inside:
(import / add options)   Sort by:
1 — 100 / 242
  1. John L. Ackrill (1978). Aristotle on Action. Mind 87 (348):595-601.
  2. J. H. Aguilar (2005). How We Act: Causes, Reasons, and Intentions. Philosophical Review 114 (4):548-550.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (2 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  3. J. Aguilar & A. Buckareff (eds.) (2010). Causing Human Action: New Perspectives on the Causal Theory of Action. Bradford.
  4. Jesús H. Aguilar (2012). Basic Causal Deviance, Action Repertoires, and Reliability. Philosophical Issues 22 (1):1-19.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (5 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  5. Jesús H. Aguilar (2007). Interpersonal Interactions and the Bounds of Agency. Dialectica 61 (2):219–234.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (2 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  6. Jesús H. Aguilar, Agency and Control.
    The main objective of this thesis is to defend an account of the control that agents possess over their actions from the perspective of the causal theory of action, that is, a theory that sees actions as events caused by internal states of their agents. The explanatory strategy that is employed for this purpose consists in addressing three interdependent and fundamental problems concerning the possibility of this type of control. The first problem arises from the possibility of controlling an action (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  7. Jesús H. Aguilar & Andrei A. Buckareff (2009). Agency, Consciousness, and Executive Control. Philosophia 37 (1):21-30.
    On the Causal Theory of Action (CTA), internal proper parts of an agent such as desires and intentions are causally responsible for actions. CTA has increasingly come under attack for its alleged failure to account for agency. A recent version of this criticism due to François Schroeter proposes that CTA cannot provide an adequate account of either the executive control or the autonomous control involved in full-fledged agency. Schroeter offers as an alternative a revised understanding of the proper role of (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (4 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  8. Jesús H. Aguilar, Andrei A. Buckareff & Keith Frankish (eds.) (2010). New Waves in Philosophy of Action. Palgrave Macmillan.
  9. M. Alvarez (2012). Action, Ethics, and Responsibility * Edited by Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael O'Rourke and Harry S. Silverstein * Causing Human Actions: New Perspectives on the Causal Theory of Action * Edited by Jesus H. Aguilar and Andrei A. Buckareff. [REVIEW] Analysis 72 (1):190-193.
  10. Holly Andersen, Causation and the Awareness of Agency.
    I criticize the tendency to address the causal role of awareness in agency in terms of the awareness of agency, and argue that this distorts the causal import of experimental results in significant ways. I illustrate, using the work of Shaun Gallagher, how the tendency to focus on the awareness of agency obscures the role of extrospective awareness by considering it only in terms of what it contributes to the awareness of agency. Focus on awareness of agency separates awareness from (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  11. Robert Audi (1993). Action, Intention, and Reason. Cornell University Press.
    In this collection of essays, Audi develops a general theory of action ranging from the nature of action and action-explanation to free and rational action.
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  12. Robert N. Audi (1993). Mental Causation: Sustaining and Dynamic. In John Heil & Alfred R. Mele (eds.), Mental Causation. Oxford University Press.
    I. the view that reasons cannot be causes. II. the view that the explanatory relevance of psychological states such as beliefs and intentions derives from their content, their explanatory role is not causal and we thus have no good reason to ascribe causal power to them. III. the idea that if the mental supervenes on the physical, then what really explains our actions is the physical properties determining our propositional attitudes, and not those attitudes themselves. IV. the thesis that since (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (3 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  13. Lynne Rudder Baker (2011). First-Personal Aspects of Agency. Metaphilosophy 42 (1-2):1-16.
    Abstract: On standard accounts, actions are caused by reasons (Davidson), and reasons are taken to be neural phenomena. Since neural phenomena are wholly understandable from a third-person perspective, standard views have no room for any ineliminable first-personal elements in an account of the causation of action. This article aims to show that first-person perspectives play essential roles in both human and nonhuman agency. Nonhuman agents have rudimentary first-person perspectives, whereas human agents—at least rational agents and moral agents—have robust first-person perspectives. (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (6 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  14. Lynne Rudder Baker (2002). Attitudes in Action: A Causal Account. Manuscrito 25 (3):47-78.
    This article aims to vindicate the commonsensical view that what we think affects what we do. In order to show that mental properties like believing, desiring and intending are causally explanatory, I propose a nonreductive, materialistic account that identifies beliefs and desires by their content, and that shows how differences in the contents of beliefs and desires can make causal differences in what we do.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (2 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  15. Peter Brian Barry, Intentional Action, Causation, and Deviance.
    It is reasonably well accepted that the explanation of intentional action is teleological explanation. Very roughly, an explanation of some event, E, is teleological only if it explains E by citing some goal or purpose or reason that produced E. Alternatively, teleological explanations of intentional action explain “by citing the state of affairs toward which the behavior was directed” thereby answering questions like “To what end was the agent’s behavior directed?” Causalism—advocated by causalists—is the thesis that explanations of intentional action (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  16. S. Bassford (1974). Enigmas of Agency: Studies in the Philosophy of Human Action. By Irving Thalberg. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.; New York: Humanities Press Inc., 1972. Pp. 229. $14.75. [REVIEW] Dialogue 13 (03):619-621.
  17. Rod Bertolet (1979). McKinsey, Causes and Intentions. Philosophical Review 88 (4):619-632.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (3 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  18. Renée Bilodeau (2006). The Motivational Strength of Intentions. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy 9:129-135.
    According to the early versions of the causal theory of action, intentional actions were both produced and explained by a beliefdesire pair. Since the end of the seventies, however, most philosophers consider intentions as an irreducible and indispensable component of any adequate account of intentional action. The aim of this paper is to examine and evaluate some of the arguments that gave rise to the introduction of the concept of intention in action theory. My contention is that none of them (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  19. Renée Bilodeau (1993). L'inertie du Mental. Dialogue 32 (03):507-525.
    This paper addresses two objections raised against anomalous monism. Firstly, on the basis of Davidson's assertion that all causal relations fall under strict laws, many critics conclude mental properties are causally inert since they are non-nomic. I argue that this conclusion follows only on the further assumption that all causally efficacious properties are nomic properties. It is perfectly consistent, however, to hold that there is a law covering each causal relation without each causal statement being the instantiation of a law. (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (2 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  20. John Bishop (2004). Review of Berent En, How We Act: Causes, Reasons and Intentions. [REVIEW] Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2004 (9).
  21. John Bishop (1993). Explaining Human Action. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 53 (3):726-731.
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  22. John Bishop (1990). Natural Agency: An Essay on the Causal Theory of Action. Cambridge University Press.
    From a moral point of view we think of ourselves as capable of responsible actions. From a scientific point of view we think of ourselves as animals whose behavior, however highly evolved, conforms to natural scientific laws. Natural Agency argues that these different perspectives can be reconciled, despite the skepticism of many philosophers who have argued that "free will" is impossible under "scientific determinism." This skepticism is best overcome according to the author, by defending a causal theory of action, that (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  23. John Bishop (1990). Searle on Natural Agency. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 68 (3):282 – 300.
  24. John Bishop (1987). Sensitive and Insensitive Responses to Deviant Action. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 65 (4):452 – 469.
  25. John Bishop (1985). Causal Deviancy and Multiple Intentions: A Reply to James Montmarquet. Analysis 45 (3):163 - 168.
  26. John Bishop (1981). Peacocke on Intentional Action. Analysis 41 (2):92 - 98.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (3 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  27. Paul Bloom, Causal Deviance and the Attribution of Moral Responsibility.
    Are current theories of moral responsibility missing a factor in the attribution of blame and praise? Four studies demonstrated that even when cause, intention, and outcome (factors generally assumed to be sufficient for the ascription of moral responsibility) are all present, blame and praise are discounted when the factors are not linked together in the usual manner (i.e., cases of ‘‘causal deviance’’). Experiment 4 further demonstrates that this effect of causal deviance is driven by intuitive gut feelings of right and (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  28. J. A. M. Bransen & S. E. Cuypers (eds.) (1998). Human Action, Deliberation and Causation. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
    The essays collected together in this volume, many of them written by leading scholars in the field, explore the commonsensical fact that our presence as ...
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  29. Michael E. Bratman (1995). Review of Action, Intention, and Reason by Robert Audi. [REVIEW] Ethics 105 (4):927-.
  30. Michael Brent (2012). The Power of Agency. Dissertation, Columbia University
    I present an alternative account of action centered around the notion of effort. I argue that effort has several unique features: it is attributed directly to agents; it is a causal power that each agent alone possesses and employs; it enables agents causally to initiate, sustain, and control their capacities during the performance of an action; and its presence comes in varying degrees of strength. After defending an effort-based account of action and criticizing what is known as the standard story (...)
    Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  31. Bill Brewer (1995). Mental Causation: Compulsion by Reason. Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 69 (69):237-253.
    The standard paradigm for mental causation is a person’s acting for a reason. Something happens - she intentionally φ’s - the occurrence of which we explain by citing a relevant belief or desire. In the present context, I simply take for granted the following two conditions on the appropriateness of this explanation. First, the agent φ’s _because_ she believes/desires what we say she does, where this is expressive of a _causal_ dependence.1 Second, her believing/desiring this gives her a _reason_ for (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  32. A. Buckareff, J. Aguilar & K. Frankish (eds.) (2010). New Waves in the Philosophy of Action. Palgrave Macmillan.
  33. Andrei A. Buckareff (2012). An Action Theoretic Problem for Intralevel Mental Causation. Philosophical Issues 22 (1):89-105.
    I take it that the following is a desideratum of our theories in the philosophy of mind. A theory in the philosophy of mind should help us better understand ourselves as agents and aid in our theorizing about the nature of action and agency. In this paper I discuss a strategy adopted by some defenders of nonreductive physicalism in response to the problem of causal exclusion. The strategy, which I refer to as “intralevelism,” relies on treating mental causation as intra (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (7 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  34. Andrei A. Buckareff (2007). Mental Overpopulation and Mental Action: Protecting Intentions From Mental Birth Control. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 37 (1):49-65.
    Many philosophers of action afford intentions a central role in theorizing about action and its explanation. Furthermore, current orthodoxy in the philosophy of action has it that intentions play a causal role with respect to the etiology and explanation of action. But action theory is not without its heretics. Some philosophers have challenged the orthodox view. In this paper I examine and critique one such challenge. I consider David-Hillel Ruben's case against the need for intentions to play a causal role (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (5 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  35. Andrei A. Buckareff & Jing Zhu (2004). Causalisms Reconsidered. Dialogue 43 (01):147-.
    We reply to Andrew Sneddon’s recent criticism of the causal theory of action (CTA) and critically examine Sneddon’s preferred alternative, minimal causalism. We show that Sneddon’s criticism of CTA is problematic in several respects, and therefore his conclusion that “the prospects for CTA look poor” is unjustified. Moreover, we show that the minimal causalism that Sneddon advocates looks rather unpromising and its merits that Sneddon mentions are untenable.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (2 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  36. Hector -Neri Castañeda (1992). Indexical Reference and Bodily Causal Diagrams in Intentional Action. Studia Logica 51 (3-4):439 - 462.
    In this paper, completed only months before his death, the author studies a number of concepts of importance for the analysis of intentional action. Four themes in particular are discussed: the intentionality of action, the practical syllogism, what the author terms the practical causality of practical thinking, and the proximate cause of action. (K. S.).
    Remove from this list | Direct download (4 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  37. Héctor-Neri Castañeda (1986). Practical Reason, Reasons for Doing and Intentional Action. Theoria 2 (1):69-96.
    To come to know what to do is to have a thought which itself consists of an awareness of its bringing about an action, or a rearrangement of one’s causal powers...The causal dimension of practical thinking is the coalescence of contemplation and the causation of that contemplation, and the contemplation of that causation.
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  38. V. C. Chappell (1963). Causation and the Identification of Actions: Comments. Journal of Philosophy 60 (23):700-701.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (3 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  39. John Churchill, Reasons Explanation and Agent Control: In Search of an Integrated Account.
    Perhaps the central challenge for indeterministic (“libertarian”) accounts of human freedom is one of integration: squaring one’s understanding of an agent’s control over his own free action with a plausible account of how such actions are properly explained by the reasons the agent had for so acting. Two types of account predominate.1 One is centered on the notion of agent causation. The other holds that a free action is the (event) causal, but nondeterministic outcome of antecedent factors including the states (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  40. Randolph Clarke (2010). Skilled Activity and the Causal Theory of Action. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 80 (3):523-550.
    Skilled activity, such as shaving or dancing, differs in important ways from many of the stock examples that are employed by action theorists. Some critics of the causal theory of action contend that such a view founders on the problem of skilled activity. This paper examines how a causal theory can be extended to the case of skilled activity and defends the account from its critics.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (5 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  41. Randolph Clarke (1996). Agent Causation and Event Causation in the Production of Free Action. Philosophical Topics 24 (2):19-48.
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  42. Arthur B. Cody (1998). The Onslaught of Mental States. Inquiry 41 (1):89 – 97.
    The causal theory of action had suffered from inattention or linguistically motivated rejection until it was revived in 1963 by Donald Davidson. Since then the causal theory has had a continuing acceptance without having had an inspection of its assumptions. There are reasons to suspect that the theory is as unfounded as it is undoubted. Those reasons are reviewed here which have to do with the definitive moment when states such as beliefs and desires must change character to become causal (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (4 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  43. Tim Crane (1995). Mental Causation, I. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 69 (69):211-236.
    Keywords: action, dualism, functionalism, materialism, physicalism Contents l. What is mental causation? 2. History 3. Mental causation as a problem for dualism 4. Mental causation as a problem for physicalism 5. Mental causation and cognitive science..
    Remove from this list | Direct download (2 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  44. Tim Crane (1995). Mental Causation. Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 69:211 - 253.
    Keywords: action, dualism, functionalism, materialism, physicalism Contents 1. What is mental causation? 2. History 3. Mental causation as a problem for dualism 4. Mental causation as a problem for physicalism 5. Mental causation and cognitive science..
    Remove from this list | Direct download (2 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  45. G. D'Oro (ed.) (forthcoming). Reasons and Causes: Causalism and Non-Causalism in the Philosophy of Action. Palgrave Macmillan.
  46. Giuseppina D'Oro (2007). Two Dogmas of Contemporary Philosophy of Action. Journal of the Philosophy of History 1 (1):10-24.
    Davidson's seminal essay "Actions, Reasons and Causes" brought about a paradigm shift in the theory of action. Before Davidson the consensus was that the fundamental task of a theory of action was to elucidate the concept of action and event explanation. The debate concerning the nature of action explanation thus took place primarily in the philosophy of history and social science and was focussed on purely methodological issues. After Davidson it has been assumed that the fundamental challenge for the theory (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (4 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  47. Arthur C. Danto (1970). Ii. Causation and Basic Actions. Inquiry 13 (1-4):108 – 125.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (2 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  48. T. F. Daveney (1966). Intentions and Causes. Analysis 27 (1):23 - 28.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (3 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  49. Donald Davidson (2006). The Essential Davidson. Oxford University Press.
    The Essential Davidson compiles the most celebrated papers of one of the twentieth century's greatest philosophers. It distills Donald Davidson's seminal contributions to our understanding of ourselves, from three decades of essays, into one thematically organized collection. A new, specially written introduction by Ernie Lepore and Kirk Ludwig, two of the world's leading authorities on his work, offers a guide through the ideas and arguments, shows how they interconnect, and reveals the systematic coherence of Davidson's worldview. Davidson's philosophical program is (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  50. Donald Davidson (2001). Essays on Actions and Events: Philosophical Essays Volume 1. Clarendon Press.
    Donald Davidson has prepared a new edition of his classic 1980 collection of Essays on Actions and Events, including two additional essays. In this seminal investigation of the nature of human action, Davidson argues for an ontology which includes events along with persons and other objects. Certain events are identified and explained as actions when they are viewed as caused and rationalized by reasons; these same events, when described in physical, biological, or physiological terms, may be explained by appeal to (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  51. Donald Davidson (1980). Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford University Press.
  52. Donald Davidson (1976). Hempel on Explaining Action. Erkenntnis 10 (3):239 - 253.
  53. Wayne A. Davis (2005). Reasons and Psychological Causes. Philosophical Studies 122 (1):51 - 101.
    The causal theory of reasons holds that acting for a reason entails that the agents action was caused by his or her beliefs and desires. While Donald Davidson (1963) and others effectively silenced the first objections to the theory, a new round has emerged. The most important recent attack is presented by Jonathan Dancy in Practical Reality (2000) and subsequent work. This paper will defend the causal theory against Dancy and others, including Schueler (1995), Stoutland (1999, 2001), and Ginet (2002).Dancy (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (2 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  54. Ezio Di Nucci (2011). Automatic Actions: Challenging Causalism. Rationality Markets and Morals 2 (1):179-200.
    I argue that so-called automatic actions – routine performances that we successfully and effortlessly complete without thinking such as turning a door handle, downshifting to 4th gear, or lighting up a cigarette – pose a challenge to causalism, because they do not appear to be preceded by the psychological states which, according to the causal theory of action, are necessary for intentional action. I argue that causalism cannot prove that agents are simply unaware of the relevant psychological states when they (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  55. Ezio Di Nucci (2011). Frankfurt Versus Frankfurt: A New Anti-Causalist Dawn. Philosophical Explorations 14 (1):117-131.
    In this paper I argue that there is an important anomaly to the causalist/compatibilist paradigm in the philosophy of action and free will. This anomaly, which to my knowledge has gone unnoticed so far, can be found in the philosophy of Harry Frankfurt. Two of his most important contributions to the field – his influential counterexample to the Principle of Alternate Possibilities and his ‘guidance’ view of action – are incompatible. The importance of this inconsistency goes far beyond the issue (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (4 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  56. Ezio Di Nucci (2008). Mind Out of Action. Dissertation, University of Edinburgh
    We think less than we think. My thesis moves from this suspicion to show that standard accounts of intentional action can't explain the whole of agency. Causalist accounts such as Davidson's and Bratman's, according to which an action can be intentional only if it is caused by a particular mental state of the agent, don't work for every kind of action. So-called automatic actions, effortless performances over which the agent doesn't deliberate, and to which she doesn't need to pay attention, (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (2 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  57. Jason Dickenson (2007). Reasons, Causes, and Contrasts. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 88 (1):1–23.
    The standard argument for the causal theory of action is "Davidson's Challenge": explain the connection between reasons and actions without appealing to the idea that reasons cause actions. I argue that this is an argument to the best contrastive explanation. After examining the nature of contrastive explanation in detail, I show that the causalist does not yet have the best explanation. The best explanation would appeal further to the motivational strength of reasons. Finally, I show how this undermines the argument (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (2 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  58. Fred Dretske (2009). What Must Actions Be for Reasons to Explain Them? In Constantine Sandis (ed.), New Essays on the Explanation of Action. Palgrave Macmillan.
  59. Fred Dretske (1998). Human Action, Deliberation and Causation. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
    Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  60. Fred Dretske (1990). Reply to Reviewers of Explaining Behavior: Reasons in a World of Causes. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 50 (4):819-839.
    Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  61. Laura W. Ekstrom (2000). Free Will: A Philosophical Study. Westview.
    In this comprehensive new study of human free agency, Laura Waddell Ekstrom critically surveys contemporary philosophical literature and provides a novel account of the conditions for free action. Ekstrom argues that incompatibilism concerning free will and causal determinism is true and thus the right account of the nature of free action must be indeterminist in nature. She examines a variety of libertarian approaches, ultimately defending an account relying on indeterministic causation among events and appealing to agent causation only in a (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (3 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  62. Berent Enc (2006). How We Act: Causes, Reasons, and Intentions. Clarendon Press.
    How We Act presents a compelling picture of human action as part of the natural causal order. Berent Enç eschews any appeal to special capacities supposedly unique to rational agents, such as agent causation or irreducible acts of volition, and by appealing to analogous positions in epistemology and the theory of perception, shows why it is a mistake to subscribe to such capacities. Although aspects of the causal theory of action have been adopted and defended by many empiricist philosophers, none (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  63. Berent Enç (2004). Causal Theories of Intentional Behavior and Wayward Causal Chains. Behavior and Philosophy 32 (1):149 - 166.
    On a causal theory of rational behavior, behavior is just a causal consequence of the reasons an actor has. One of the difficulties with this theory has been the possibility of the "wayward causal chains," according to which reasons can cause the expected output, but in such an unusual way that the output is clearly not intentional. The inability to find a general way of excluding these wayward chains without implicitly appealing to elements incompatible with a pure causal account (like (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  64. Berent Enç (2003). How We Act: Causes, Reasons, and Intentions. Oxford University Press.
    Talking about action comes easily to us. We quickly make distinctions between voluntary and non-voluntary actions; we think we can tell what intentions are; we are confident about evaluating reasons offered in rational justification of action. Berent Enc provides a philosopher's sustained examination of these issues: he portrays action as belonging to the causal order of events in nature, a theory from which new and surprising accounts of intention and voluntary action emerge. Philosophers and cognitive scientists alike will find How (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  65. Simon Evnine (1991). Donald Davidson. Stanford University Press.
    Donald Davidson is unquestionably one of America's greatest living philosophers. His influence on Anglo-American philosophy over the last twenty years has been enormous, and his work is an unavoidable reference point in current debates in the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind. This book offers a systematic and accessible introduction to Davidson's work. Evnine begins by discussing Davidson's contribution to the philosophy of mind, including his views on action, events and causation. He then examines Davidson's work in the (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  66. Richard H. Feldman & Andrei A. Buckareff (2003). Reasons Explanations and Pure Agency. Philosophical Studies 112 (2):135-145.
    We focus on the recent non-causal theory of reasons explanationsof free action proffered by a proponent of the agency theory, Timothy O'Connor. We argue that the conditions O'Connor offersare neither necessary nor sufficient for a person to act for a reason. Finally, we note that the role O'Connor assigns toreasons in the etiology of actions results in further conceptual difficulties for agent-causalism.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (4 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  67. John Ferejohn (2002). Symposium on Explanations and Social Ontology 1: Rational Choice Theory and Social Explanation. Economics and Philosophy 18 (2):211-234.
    In the Common Mind, Pettit argues that rational choice theory cannot provide genuine causal accounts of action. A genuine causal explanation of intentional action must track how people actually deliberate to arrive at action. And, deliberation is necessarily enculturated or situated “. . . we take human agents to reason their way to action, using the concepts that are available to them in the currency of their culture” (p. 220). When deciding how to act, “. . . people find their (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (3 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  68. Carrie Figdor (2003). Can Mental Representations Be Triggering Causes? Consciousness and Emotion 4 (1):43-61.
    Fred Dretske?s (1988) account of the causal role of intentional mental states was widely criticized for missing the target: he explained why a type of intentional state causes the type of bodily motion it does rather than some other type, when what we wanted was an account of how the intentional properties of these states play a causal role in each singular causal relation with a token bodily motion. I argue that the non-reductive metaphysics that Dretske defends for his account (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (2 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  69. Milton Fisk (1965). Causation and Action. The Review of Metaphysics 19 (2):235 - 247.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (2 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  70. Christopher Franklin (2013). Jesús H. Aguilar and Andrei A. Buckareff , Causing Human Actions: New Perspectives on the Causal Theory of Action . Reviewed By. [REVIEW] Philosophy in Review 33 (1):1-3.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (2 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  71. Danny Frederick (2010). Unmotivated Intentional Action. Philosophical Frontiers 5 (1):21-30.
    In opposition to the tenet of contemporary action theory that an intentional action must be done for a reason, I argue that some intentional actions are unmotivated. I provide examples of arbitrary and habitual actions that are done for no reason at all. I consider and rebut an objection to the examples of unmotivated habitual action. I explain how my contention differs from recent challenges to the tenet by Hursthouse, Stocker and Pollard.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (2 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  72. Shaun Gallagher (2008). Self-Agency and Mental Causality. In Kenneth S. Kendler & Josef Parnas (eds.), Philosophical Issues in Psychiatry: Explanation, Phenomenology, and Nosology. Johns Hopkins University Press.
    I want to explore one small corner of the concept of mental causality. It’s the corner where discussions about mind-body interactions and epiphenomenalism take place. My basic contention is that these discussions are framed in the wrong terms because they are infected by a mind-body dualism which defines the question of mental causality in a classic or standard way: How does a mental event cause my body to do what it does? Setting the question in this way has consequences for (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  73. John Gibbons (2009). Reason in Action. In Lucy O'Brien & Matthew Soteriou (eds.), Mental Actions. Oxford University Press.
    There is a problem with a very common theory of the nature of action. The problem stems from the fact that causation by practical reasons may be a necessary condition for being an intentional action, but it can’t be a sufficient condition. After all, desires and intentions are caused by practical reasons that rationalize them, but they’re clearly not actions. Even if all actions are events or changes and desires and intentions aren’t, the acquistion of a desire or an intention (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  74. Carl Ginet (1997). Freedom, Responsibility, and Agency. Journal of Ethics 1 (1):85-98.
    This paper first distinguishes three alternative views that adherents to both incompatibilism and PAP may take as to what constitutes an agent''s determining or controlling her action (if it''s not the action''s being deterministically caused by antecedent events): the indeterministic-causation view, the agent-causation view, and "simple indeterminism." The bulk of the paper focusses on the dispute between simple indeterminism - the view that the occurrence of a simple mental event is determined by its subject if it possesses the "actish" phenomenal (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (6 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  75. Carl Ginet (1988). Book Review. An Essay on Human Action. Michael Zimmerman. [REVIEW] Philosophical Review 97 (1):114-118.
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  76. O. Gjelsvik (2012). Causing Human Actions, New Perspectives on the Causal Theory of Action, Edited by Jesus H. Aguilar and Andrei A. Buckareff. * Action, Ethics and Responsibility, Edited by Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael O'Rourke, and Harry S. Silverstein. [REVIEW] Mind 121 (482):471-474.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (4 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  77. Kathrin Gluer (2011). Donald Davidson: A Short Introduction. OUP USA.
    Donald Davidson was one of the 20th Century's deepest analytic thinkers. He developed a systematic picture of the human mind and its relation to the world, an original and sustained vision that exerted a shaping influence well beyond analytic philosophy of mind and language. At its center is an idea of minded creatures as essentially rational animals: Rational animals can be interpreted, their behavior can be understood, and the contents of their thoughts are, in principle, open to others. The combination (...)
    Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  78. Stuart Goetz (2004). Book Reveiw: Motivation and Agency by Alfred Mele. [REVIEW] Journal of Ethics 8 (2):197-200.
  79. Alvin I. Goldman (1979). Action, Causation, and Unity. Noûs 13 (2):261-270.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (3 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  80. Jarosław Gryz (1988). Eseje o działaniach i zdarzeniach Donalda Davidsona (Donald Davidson, Essays on Actions and Events). [REVIEW] Etyka 23:177-181.
    Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  81. Don Gustafson (2007). Neurosciences of Action and Noncausal Theories. Philosophical Psychology 20 (3):367–374.
    Recent neuroscience and psychology of behavior have suggested that conscious decisions may have no causal role in the etiology of intentional action. Such results pose a threat to traditional philosophical analyses of action. On such views beliefs, desires and conscious willing are part of the causal structure of intentional action. But if the suggestions from neuroscience/psychology are correct, analyses of this kind are wrong. Conscious antecedents of action are epiphenomenal. This essay explores this consequence. It also notes that the traditional (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (3 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  82. Peter Hacker (2009). Agential Reasons and the Explanation of Human Behaviour. In Constantine Sandis (ed.), New Essays on the Explanation of Action. Palgrave Macmillan.
  83. Adrian Haddock (2005). At One with Our Actions, but at Two with Our Bodies. Philosophical Explorations 8 (2):157 – 172.
    Jennifer Hornsby's account of human action frees us from the temptation to think of the person who acts as 'doing' the events that are her actions, and thereby removes much of the allure of 'agent causation'. But her account is spoiled by the claim that physical actions are 'tryings' that cause bodily movements. It would be better to think of physical actions and bodily movements as identical; but Hornsby refuses to do this, seemingly because she thinks that to do so (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (5 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  84. Ishtiyaque Haji (2005). Libertarianism, Luck, and Action Explanation. Journal of Philosophical Research 30:321-340.
    My primary objective is to motivate the concern that leading libertarian views of free action seem unable to account for an agent’s behavior in a way that reveals an explanatorily apt connection between the agent’s prior reasons and the intentional behavior to be explained. I argue that it is this lack of a suitable reasons explanation of purportedly free decisions that underpins the objection that agents who act with the pertinent sort of libertarian freedom cannot be morally responsible for what (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  85. Ishtiyaque Haji (2004). Active Control, Agent-Causation and Free Action. Philosophical Explorations 7 (2):131-148.
    Key elements of Randolph Clarke's libertarian account of freedom that requires both agent-causation and non-deterministic event-causation in the production of free action is assessed with an eye toward determining whether agent-causal accounts can accommodate the truth of judgments of moral obligation.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (7 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  86. Ishtiyaque Haji (1994). Springs of Action. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 24 (3):511-524.
  87. Robert Hanna (2009). Embodied Minds in Action. Oxford University Press.
    In Embodied Minds in Action, Robert Hanna and Michelle Maiese work out a unified treatment of three fundamental philosophical problems: the mind-body problem, the problem of mental causation, and the problem of action. This unified treatment rests on two basic claims. The first is that conscious, intentional minds like ours are essentially embodied. This entails that our minds are necessarily spread throughout our living, organismic bodies and belong to their complete neurobiological constitution. So minds like ours are necessarily alive. The (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  88. Edmund Henden (2004). Weakness of Will and Divisions of the Mind. European Journal of Philosophy 12 (2):199–213.
    Some authors have argued that, in order to give an account of weakness of the will, we must assume that the mind is divisible into parts. This claim is often referred to as the partitioning claim. There appear to be two main arguments for this claim. While the first is conceptual and claims that the notion of divisibility is entailed by the notion of non-rational mental causation (which is held to be a necessary condition of weakness of the will), the (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (5 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  89. Noel Hendrickson (2002). Against an Agent-Causal Theory of Action. Southern Journal of Philosophy 40 (1):41-58.
  90. J. Hintikka & R. Tuomela (eds.) (1997). Contemporary Action Theory. Kluwer.
  91. Jakob Hohwy (2005). The Experience of Mental Causation. Behavior and Philosophy 32 (2):377-400.
    subjects mean when they report their mental states it is useful to be guided by a sound grasp of their concepts for mental events. 3 Though this is often ignored in favor of libertarian notions of free will, in which free action is seen as completely undetermined by the subject.
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  92. Jennifer Hornsby (2012). Actions and Activity. Philosophical Issues 22 (1):233-245.
  93. Jennifer Hornsby, Anomalousness in Action.
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  94. Jennifer Hornsby (1993). Agency and Causal Explanation. In John Heil & Alfred R. Mele (eds.), Mental Causation. Oxford University Press.
    I. There are two points of view: ___ From the personal point of view, an action is a person's doing something for a reason, and her doing it is found intelligible when we know the reason that led her to it. ___ From the impersonal point of view, an action would be a link in a causal chain that could be viewed without paying any attention to people, the links being understood by reference to the world's causal workings.
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  95. Jennifer Hornsby (1980). Actions. Routledge and Kegan Paul.
    This book presents an events-based view of human action somewhat different from that of what is known as "standard story". A thesis about trying-to-do-something is distinguished from various volitionist theses. It is argued then that given a correct conception of action's antecedents, actions will be identified not with bodily movements but with causes of such movements.
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  96. Susan L. Hurley (2001). Perception and Action: Alternative Views. Synthese 129 (1):3-40.
    A traditional view of perception and action makestwo assumptions: that the causal flow betweenperception and action is primarily linear or one-way,and that they are merely instrumentally related toeach other, so that each is a means to the other.Either or both of these assumptions can be rejected.Behaviorism rejects the instrumental but not theone-way aspect of the traditional view, thus leavingitself open to charges of verificationism. Ecologicalviews reject the one-way aspect but not theinstrumental aspect of the traditional view, so thatperception and (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (7 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  97. Nadeem J. Z. Hussain (2004). Review: Discussion: "The Guise of a Reason". [REVIEW] Philosophical Studies 121 (3):263 - 275.
    Contribution to a book symposium on David Velleman's THE POSSIBILITY OF PRACTICAL REASON. In this book, Velleman argues that agency is compatible with a causal conception of the world, since the role of the agent can be played in this conception by an aim of self-knowledge instantiated in the mechanisms governing mental states. This article argues (i) that he must show what at the causal level plays the role of the agent's awareness of the normative guise of reasons and (ii) (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (3 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  98. Daniel D. Hutto (1999). A Cause for Concern: Reasons, Causes and Explanations. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 59 (2):381-401.
    This paper argues against causalism about reasons in three stages. First, the paper investigates Professor Davidson's sophisticated version of the claim that we must understand reason-explanations as a kind of causal explanation to highlight the fact that this move does no explanatory work in telling us how we determine for which reasons we act. Second, the paper considers Davidson's true motivation for regarding reasons-explanations as causal which connects with his claim that reasons are causes. He advocates anomalous monism in order (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (4 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  99. Gary Iseminger (1969). Malcolm on Explanations and Causes. Philosophical Studies 20 (October):73-77.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (3 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  100. Jenann Ismael, Causation, Perspective and Agency.
    Philosophers of mind tend to take it for granted that causal relations are part of the mind-independent, objective fabric of the physical world. In fact, their status has been hotly contested since Russell famously observed that the closest thing to causal relations in physics are timesymmetric dynamical laws relating global time slices of world-history. 1 These bear a distant relationship to the local, asymmetric relations that form the core of the folk notion of cause. Nancy Cartwright, in an influential response, (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
1 — 100 / 242