A Companion to the Philosophy of Action

by O'Connor, Timothy; Sandis, Constantine

• ISBN13: 9781405187350
• ISBN10: 1405187352
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-05-24
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

A Companion to the Philosophy of Action offers a comprehensive overview of the issues and problems central to the philosophy of action. The first volume to survey the entire field of philosophy of action (the central issues and processes relating to human actions) Brings together specially commissioned chapters from international experts Discusses a range of ideas and doctrines, including rationality, free will and determinism, virtuous action, criminal responsibility, Attribution Theory, and rational agency in evolutionary perspective Individual chapters also cover prominent historic figures from Plato to Ricoeur Can be approached as a complete narrative, but also serves as a work of reference Offers rich insights into an area of philosophical thought that has attracted thinkers since the time of the ancient Greeks

Author Biography

Timothy O'Connor is Professor and Department Chair of Philosophy at Indiana University Bloomington, and a member of its Cognitive Sciences Program. He has published extensively in metaphysics, philosophy of mind and action, and philosophy of religion. His books include Agents, Causes, and Events: Essays on Indeterminism and Free Will (ed. 1995), Persons and Causes: The Metaphysics o Free Will (2000), Philosophy of Mind: Contemporary Readings (ed. 2003), Theism and Ultimate Explanation: The Necessary Shape of Contingency (2008) and Downward Causation and the Neurobiology of Free Will (ed. 2010).
Constantine Sandis is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Oxford Brookes University and New York University in London. He is the editor of New Essays on the Explanation of Action (2009) and Hegel on Action (with Arto Laitinen, 2010), and author of The Things We Do and Why We Do Them (2010).

Table of Contents

Acts and Actions

Action Theory and Ontology

Basic Actions and Individuation

Trying to Act

The Causal Theory of Action

Adverbs of Action and Logical Form

Speech Acts

Collective Action

Habitual Actions

Cambridge Actions

Pluralism about Action

Motivation and Causation

Antecedents and Explanation

Volition and the Will

Intention

Desire and Pleasure

Teleological Explanation

Reasons and Causes

Triggering and Structuring Causes

Motivating Reasons

Humeanism About Motivation

Deviant Causal Chains

Action Explanation and the Unconscious

Mental Causation and Epiphenomenalism

The Explanatory Role of Consciousness

What a Difference Emotions Make

Agency and Control

Agency, Patiency, and Personhood

Mental Acts vJoëlle Proust

Agent Causation

Bodily Awareness and Bodily Action

Agents' Knowledge

Practical Reasoning

Deliberation and Decision

Motivational Strength

Addiction and Compulsion

Akrasia and Irrationality

Action in Special Contexts

Normative Psychology

Rationality

Motivational Internalism and Externalism

Free Will and Determinism

Responsibility and Autonomy

Virtuous Action

The Doctrine of Double Effect

Action and Criminal Responsibility

Intention in Law

Nature and Science

Scientific Challenges to Free Will

Intentional Action in Folk Psychology

Attribution Theory

Rational Agency in Evolutionary Perspective

Animal Action

Action in Cognitive Ethology

Action in History and Social Science

The Prediction of Action

Prominent Figures

Indian Philosophers

Plato

Aristotle

Stoics, Epicureans, and Aristotelians

Augustine and Aquinas

Dun Scotus

Hobbes

Descartes

Locke

Berkeley

Reid

Hume

Kant

Nietzsche

Hegel

Weber

Wittgenstein

Ryle

Sartre

Chisholm

von Wright

Davidson

Anscombe

Ric£ur

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