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Markos Valaris, The Instrumental Structure of Actions, The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 65, Issue 258, January 2015, Pages 64–83, https://doi.org/10.1093/pq/pqu054
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Abstract
According to current orthodoxy in the philosophy of action, intentional actions consist in intrinsically mindless bodily movements that stand in causal relations to appropriate mental states. This paper challenges this approach to intentional action, by arguing that there are not enough appropriate mental states around to ‘animate’ all of the bodily movements we intuitively count as intentional actions. In the alternative picture I suggest, the bodily movements that constitute our intentional actions are themselves to be thought of as cognitive events, embodying our grasp of ways of acting.