Manifest Activity Thomas Reid's Theory of Action

by Yaffe, Gideon

• ISBN13: 9780199228034
• ISBN10: 0199228035
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-11-11
• Publisher: Clarendon Press

Summary

Manifest Activity presents and critically examines Thomas Reid's doctrines about the model of human power, the will, our capacities for purposeful conduct, and the place of our agency in the natural world. Reid is one of the most important philosophers of the 18th century, but hithertounder-appreciated; through the reconstruction of his arguments, many of which have never before been discussed, Gideon Yaffe demonstrates that Reid's simple prose and direct style belie the complexity of the views he advocates and the subtlety of the reasons he offers in their favour.For Reid, contrary to the view of many of his predecessors, it is simply manifest that we are active with respect to our behaviours; it is manifest, he thinks, that our actions are not merely remote products of forces that lie outside of our control. Reid holds, instead, that actions are all andonly those events that spring from active power, and he produces insightful and imaginative arguments for the claim that only a creature with a mind is capable of having active power. He believes that only human beings, and creatures 'above us', are capable of directing events towards ends, ofendowing them with purpose or direction, the distinctive feature of action. However, he also holds that all events, and not merely human actions, are products of active power, power possessed either by human beings or by God. This collection of theses leads Reid to the view that human behaviour andthe progress of nature are both essentially teleological. Patterns in nature are the products of laws of which God is the author; patterns in human conduct are the products of character and the laws that individuals set for themselves. Manifest Activity examines Reid's arguments for this view and the view's implications for the nature of character, motivation, and the special kind of causation involved in the production of human behaviour. Yaffe's assessment will greatly profit anyone working on current theories of action and freewill, as well as historians of ideas.

Table of Contents

References to Reid's Works	p. x
Introduction: Teleology and the Science of Action	p. 1
From Power to Mind: An Argument from the Power to Exert	p. 14
From Power to Mind: An Argument from the Power to Do Otherwise	p. 38
From Change to Power	p. 57
From End-Directedness to Power	p. 76
The Influence of Motives: The Push of Power?	p. 98
The Influence of Motives: The Push of Law?	p. 114
Conclusion: Agent Causation and the Regress of Effort	p. 150
Bibliography	p. 159
Index	p. 163
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