Abstract

In Brian O'Shaughnessy's recent works, primarily The Will, and Jennifer Hornsby's Actions, the traditional position of volitionism has been revived in a challenging fashion. Focusing on the concept of trying, they have argued that intentional physical actions essentially involve a special volitional element. My thesis is that, without recourse to volitions, an alternative account of physical action and physical trying can be provided in which physical actions and physical tryings are identified with physical movements performed by the agent. ;Drawing on linguistic facts about the verb "to move," Jennifer Hornsby claims that all bodily movements associated with an action are caused by an inner act of the agent. Similarly, Brian O'Shaughnessy claims that "trying" is defined by an essential property that mere bodily movements lack. Therefore, trying involves an inner element essential to action. I find both of these arguments unconvincing, and argue that the volitionists' conclusions follow only if their truth is presupposed. ;Arguments employing evil deceivers are also thought to provide epistemological reasons for interpreting tyings as willings. Using such arguments, O'Shaughnessy develops a position called "conditional Cartesianism": that one relates to one's bodily tryings as one does one's own sensations. However, I argue that evil deceiver arguments are compatible with the interpretation of tryings as ordinary bodily movements, and that conditional Cartesianism is dubious. ;Finally, I examine the recalcitrant cases of patients with paralyzed or anesthetized limbs. Volitionists believe that such cases point irrefutably to volitions as essential elements in action. Against this view, I develop an alternative interpretation of tryings as bodily movements by utilizing the anti-Cartesian notion of de re intentions. Even the trying in the paralyzed-arm case can be seen to be a movement performed by the agent with a certain de re intention. Therefore, the Cartesian search for willings in terms of trying need not bother us once this non-volitionistic, non-Cartesian alternative is recognized