The Nature of Action

We do things in time. Philosophy of action can capture this phenomenon in at least two ways. On one hand, it might focus on the way that temporal preferences and long-term temporal horizons affect the rationality of decisions in the present (see, e.g., Parfit 1984; Rawls 1971). Such work may focus on the way we discount the distant future, for example, or prioritize the future over the past. Approaches of this kind treat time as, in a sense, something external to (...) agency; it sets various constraints on what we may rationally intend, for example. But if temporal considerations can constrain agency, it follows that they can also structure it internally, and if they can do so, it seems likely that this is possible because agency is already temporally structured. This volume focuses on the way that agency is temporally structured from within, such that time is an ineliminable constituent of agency. (shrink)

This paper explores the question whether whatever is done intentionally is done for a reason. Apart from helping us to think about those concepts, the question is interesting because it affords an opportunity to identify a number of misconceptions about reasons. In the paper I argue that there are things that are done intentionally but not done for a reason. I examine two different kinds of example: things done “because one wants to” and “purely expressive actions”. Concerning the first, I (...) argue that the tendency to think that things done because one wants to are things done for a reason derives from conflating the reason that explains why someone did something with their reason for doing it. While these sometimes coincide, they need not always do so. And although the fact that someone wanted to do something can contribute to explaining the person's action, it is not normally that person's reason for doing that thing. Purely expressive actions also provide examples of things done intentionally but not for a reason. I argue that, although those actions are spontaneous, they are nonetheless intentional and that, since they are mere expressions of emotions, they are not done for reasons - although there are reasons why we do them. (shrink)

Most human actions are complex, but some of them are basic. Which are these? In this paper, I address this question by invoking slips, a common kind of mistake. The proposal is this: an action is basic if and only if it is not possible to slip in performing it. The argument discusses some well-established results from the psychology of language production in the context of a philosophical theory of action. In the end, the proposed criterion is applied to discuss (...) some well-known theories of basic actions. (shrink)

This book constitutes refereed proceedings of the COST 2102 International Training School on Cognitive Behavioural Systems held in Dresden, Germany, in February 2011. The 39 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The volume presents new and original research results in the field of human-machine interaction inspired by cognitive behavioural human-human interaction features. The themes covered are on cognitive and computational social information processing, emotional and social believable Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) systems, behavioural and contextual analysis (...) of interaction, embodiment, perception, linguistics, semantics and sentiment analysis in dialogues and interactions, algorithmic and computational issues for the automatic recognition and synthesis of emotional states. (shrink)

The fact that psychic life is not merely given externally and as mutual externality, but is given in its nexus, given by self-knowledge, by internal experience, constitutes the basic difference between psychological knowledge and knowledge of nature.

Scholarship on Aristotle’s theory of action has recently veered toward an intellectualist position, according to which reason is in charge of setting the goals of action. This position has recently been criticized by an anti-intellectualism revival, according to which character, and not reason, sets the goals of action. I argue that neither view can sufficiently account for the complexities of Aristotle’s theory, and suggest a middle way that combines the strengths of both while avoiding their pitfalls. The key problem for (...) intellectualism is that Aristotle explicitly states reason cannot set the goals of action. The key problem for anti-intellectualism is that he also holds that the soul’s rational part must guide and prescribe over the non-rational part. I propose indirect intellectualism, a promising middle path. (shrink)

This dissertation is an attempt to analyze an indigenous concept of early Chinese Philosophy in its own context, interpreting it outside of a contemporary Western philosophical framework , then to comb the history of Western philosophy for related concepts, in order to finally enrich the contemporary philosophical landscape by incorporating this concept through a useful and familiar set of conceptual tools. ;The concept in question is ziran, rendered spontaneity, a central notion of early Chinese philosophy but one that has not (...) been philosophically elaborated to an adequate degree in sinological literature. Preliminary to addressing spontaneity, one must first address the outstanding metaphysical issue of intersubjective interaction in early Chinese philosophy, and such an investigation must center on the difficult notion of qing, rendered affectivity in a general sense meant to encompass not only emotion but all cognition. On the sensitivity-and-response model of Chinese interpenetrative interaction, affectivity is found to be a central component of such interaction. ;Having laid the groundwork for an analysis of spontaneity, I examine the skill episodes of the early Chinese Daoist work Zhuangzi, abstracting out four defining features of spontaneous action. After elaborating on these features in context and in relation to each other, I turn to the Western philosophical tradition to see if any aspects of spontaneity or its underlying metaphysics can be discovered there. Although metaphysical differences are constantly an obstacle, I find significant parallels to spontaneity in such figures as Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, Schiller, James, and Dewey. Through extended examination of this wide variety of philosophical theories, a more nuanced and enriched understanding of spontaneity results. ;Finally, I bring spontaneity to bear on aesthetic and moral action. Here I make a number of original contributions regarding how to conceptualize spontaneous action with regard to formality and syntax of actions in activities, regarding a division of the arts into somatic and non-somatic, regarding the relationship of spontaneity to improvisation, and regarding the possibility and challenge of cultivating spontaneity in art and in moral action. ;Similar philosophical gains are prompted through the dissertation, such as the logical impossibility of judgment, the possibility and desirability of unnatural action, the distinction of numismatic terminology, and the usefulness of the inchoate. (shrink)

Aristotle's theory of human action is an impressive achievement that has served philosophy well for more than two thousand years. In every philosophical era it is explored anew--and with great profit. As a contribution to contemporary efforts in this regard, the present dissertation aims to lay out, lucidly and in detail, the various components of Aristotle's action theory. ;Since actions, according to Aristotle, constitute a sub-class of "the voluntary", the dissertation begins by examining Aristotle's account of voluntary activities. It discusses (...) the chief characteristics shared by all such activities, and compares the Nicomachean and Eudemian accounts. ;Perception is examined next, because percepts and their lingering traces , according to Aristotle, are the triggers of desire. And desire provides the impetus for animal behavior and human action. Aristotle's analysis assumes a rich array of desire-types, including appetites, passions, emotions, and wishes, all of which are analyzed in the dissertation. ;The keys to adult human action--distinguishing it from animal and child behavior--are deliberation, "choice" and the so-called "practical syllogism". The dissertation examines these in some detail and produces a model of the practical syllogism. ;Once the practical syllogism has been examined, the dissertation considers the question of whether Aristotle's theory of action provides a successful resolution of the so-called "problem of free will". It is argued that Aristotle--despite common misconceptions to the contrary--was aware of the problem and had a promising philosophical basis for its solution. (shrink)

The paper discusses Hegel’s conception of intentional action. Drawing principally on Hegel’s analysis of the determinations and rights of action in the Morality chapter of the Philosophy of Right, I suggest that Hegel is committed to a corrigibilist view of action, according to which intentions are definitive of action, objective, and publicly accessible, in principle, via ex post facto corrective interpretation. I conclude by commenting briefly on the place of Hegel’s conception of action in the broader action-theoretic landscape.

Steven Lukes and Alasdair MacIntyre have accused analytical action theory of being motivated by reductionist aims and of ignoring the fact that what is distinctively human about actions is their essentially social character. These reductionist aims are said to 'subvert, the search for the distinctively human. Enterprises that have particularly come under fire are the search for 'basic' actions and attempts to solve problems regarding the 'individuation' of actions. Lukes and MacIntyre are mistaken however, both in their interpretation of the (...) aims which motivate analytical action theory, and in their characterisation of the search for the distinctively human. 'Individuated' or 'basic' actions are not complex social actions reduced down to their 'simplest elements'. They represent attempts to resolve problems which arise prior to the examination of the social character of actions. (shrink)

In his many and varied writings, St Thomas presents us with both a sophisticated account of human action and a complicated moral theory. In this article, I shall be considering the question of whether St Thomas’s theory of action and his moral theory are mutually consistent. My claim shall be that St Thomas can preserve the ontological unity of human action—but only at the cost of rendering it extremely difficult to evaluate in a manner consistent with his moral theory, or, (...) alternatively, that he can provide a viable ethical analysis of human action—but only at the cost of compromising its ontological unity. In the first section of this article I shall examine St Thomas’s account of a particular kind of moral action, namely lying. Two basic questions concerning the specificity of unicity of human action will emerge from this examination: 1) what makes an act to be a specific moral act?, and 2) what makes a specific moral act to be one act? In the second section of the article I shall attempt to show, by means of a textual examination, that St Thomas does not appear to be able to provide an account of human action that will satisfactorily answer both these basic questions at the same time. (shrink)