Online research in philosophy

Most of the paper is devoted to examining and discussing a conceptual scheme devised by Jakob Mel?e for the description of human action. The main focus is on that part of the scheme which Mel?e has developed in detail in his ?Akt?ren og hans verden?, and which is a scheme for describing single practical operations by a single agent. These operations have the form ?x operates on y?. I identify as central in this scheme the four concepts of the operation's (...) tautologous object, the operation's tautologous subject, the agent and the agent's tautologous body. The common thematic concern of Mel?e's work and this paper is the question of the extent to which the agent's landscape (in a fairly broad sense of the term) is a determinant of the identity of his action. (shrink)

The starting?point for this discussion is Rolf Gruner's ?On the Action of Social Groups? (Inquiry, Vol. 19 [1976]), in which it is argued that assemblies and institutions can be said to perform actions, while classes cannot. It is shown here that teams, which are groups distinct from both assemblies and institutions, can also be said to act. Some of the similarities and differences between teams and assemblies and institutions are noted; and, in particular, it is found that the relation between (...) the action of a team and the actions of its members differs from the corresponding relations in the cases of assemblies and institutions. (shrink)