(H/B) ENIGMAS OF AGENCY

Παρουσίαση

I hope these preliminary comments will anticipate several questions that might otherwise trouble a non-specialist reader of these studies of mine on action. The essays themselves demand no particular expertise; and the riddles which are treated in them are set out in sufficient detail to be understood by laymen. But still the general reader might be unsure about this collection as a whole, and want some background. He might ask:
Just what are the leading issues about human agency that stir up philosophers nowadays? How did these issues develop in various current philosophical traditions? How do individual papers in the collection help to solve, or exacerbate, these contemporary problems? What are the common themes among the papers? In cases where I have deliberately neglected some burning controversy that is germane to my essays, why have I done so? Is it because I think someone has already propounded the right view? Or have I some reason for judging the issue to be insoluble at this time, perhaps because the scientific information we need is not yet available?
The problems
Since my purpose is only to furnish stage-setting which will make the essays clearer, I shall not offer exhaustive replies to the foregoing questions. To begin with the reader's first question, I would catalogue seven overlapping groups of current problems about action. We might call them problem areas. By reference to the central notion in each one, these problem areas concern, respectively:
(1) causal explanation of what people do;
(2) the nature of actions, as contrasted with bodily processes, things that happen to a person, and events of the inanimate world;
(3) the awareness which people have regarding their current behaviour;
(4) the control agents have over what they do, the power they have to act or not, as they choose;
(5) choice itself, and kindred phenomena such as desires and reasons for acting, which were traditionally regarded as functions of the will;
(6) the concept of freedom, as it applies to the actions and perhaps also to the will of an individual;
(7) the connection between what people believe or know they ought to do and their eventual conduct. [...] (From the publisher)

Περιεχόμενα

Introductory Remarks
Do We Cause Our Own Actions?
How Can We Distinguish Between Doing and Undergoing?
Are There Non-Causal Explanations of Action? (originally co-authored by Arnold B. Levison)
Some Puzzles about Effort (originally co-authored by Suzanne McCormick)
Can One Intend the Impossible?
How Is Ability Related to Performance?
Can Our Wills Be Free ?
Can I Foreknow Decisions I Have Not Yet Made?
Can We hold People Strictly Liable for Their Deeds?
How Do I Know What I Am Doing?
The Socratic Paradox and Remorse
Selected Bibliography
Index