Motor Intentions and Non-Observational Knowledge of Action: A Standard Story
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Motor Intentions and Non-Observational Knowledge of Action : A Standard Story. / Blomberg, Olle; Brozzo, Chiara.
In: Thought: A Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 6, No. 3, 09.2017, p. 137-146.Research output: Contribution to journal › Comment/debate › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Motor Intentions and Non-Observational Knowledge of Action
T2 - A Standard Story
AU - Blomberg, Olle
AU - Brozzo, Chiara
PY - 2017/9
Y1 - 2017/9
N2 - According to the standard story given by reductive versions of the Causal Theory of Action, an action is an intrinsically mindless bodily movement that is appropriately caused by an intention. Those who embrace this story typically take this intention to have a coarse-grained content, specifying the action only down to the level of the agent’s habits and skills. Markos Valaris (2015) argues that, because of this, the standard story cannot make sense of the deep reach of our non-observational knowledge of action. He concludes that we therefore have to jettison its conception of actions as mindless bodily movements animated from the outside by intentions. Here we defend the standard story. We can make sense of the reach of non-observational knowledge of action once we reject the following two assumptions: (i) that an intended habitual or skilled action is a so-called basic action—that is, an action that doesn’t involve any finer-grained intentions—and (ii) that an agent, in acting, is merely executing one intention rather than a whole hierarchy of more or less fine-grained intentions. We argue that (i) and (ii) are false.
AB - According to the standard story given by reductive versions of the Causal Theory of Action, an action is an intrinsically mindless bodily movement that is appropriately caused by an intention. Those who embrace this story typically take this intention to have a coarse-grained content, specifying the action only down to the level of the agent’s habits and skills. Markos Valaris (2015) argues that, because of this, the standard story cannot make sense of the deep reach of our non-observational knowledge of action. He concludes that we therefore have to jettison its conception of actions as mindless bodily movements animated from the outside by intentions. Here we defend the standard story. We can make sense of the reach of non-observational knowledge of action once we reject the following two assumptions: (i) that an intended habitual or skilled action is a so-called basic action—that is, an action that doesn’t involve any finer-grained intentions—and (ii) that an agent, in acting, is merely executing one intention rather than a whole hierarchy of more or less fine-grained intentions. We argue that (i) and (ii) are false.
KW - Faculty of Humanities
KW - non-observational knowledge of action
KW - Causal Theory of Action
KW - intentions
KW - motor representations
KW - Markos Valaris
KW - basic actions
KW - habit
KW - skill
KW - reductionism
U2 - 10.1002/tht3.249
DO - 10.1002/tht3.249
M3 - Comment/debate
VL - 6
SP - 137
EP - 146
JO - Thought
JF - Thought
SN - 2161-2234
IS - 3
ER -
ID: 180397492