Understanding human agency /
How can we be active agents when processes in the world are explicable by the laws of natural science? Erasmus Mayr explores this deep-running tension in our self-understanding and develops a new agent-causal solution to the conflict. He argues that actions explained by aims and reasons are compatib...
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
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Oxford ; New York :
Oxford University Press,
2011.
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| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
Table of Contents:
- Cover; Contents; Introduction; 1 The problem of human agency; 1.1. Three harmless theses and a problem; 1.2. Reacting to the problem: the 'privileging' reaction; 2 The agenda for finding a solution; 2.1. What kind of solution is required?; 2.2. Performances, agential control, and intentionalism; 2.3. Event-causalism versus agent-causalism; 3 Alien desires and Frankfurt's problem of identification; 3.1. The challenge from Frankfurt's cases of alienation; 3.2. Frankfurt's hierarchical model; 3.3. Responses to the three problems: the later Frankfurt, Watson, and Velleman
- 4 Identification, desires, and practical reasoning4.1. Identification as 'treating a desire as reason-giving'; 4.2. The authority of practical reasoning and the nature of motivating reasons; 4.3. Three objections; 4.4. Conclusion; 5 Deviant causal chains; 5.1. The problem of antecedential waywardness; 5.2. The standard of adequacy for a causalist analysis; 5.3. The 'immediate causation' strategy; 5.4. Sensitivity strategies; 5.5. Sustaining causation; 5.6. The new 'manifestation' or 'well-functioning' analyses of action; 5.7. Conclusion
- 6 How agent-causation works I: the problem, and a brief theory of powers6.1. The classical argument against the possibility of agent-causation; 6.2. Powers as genuine properties; 7 How agent-causation works II: the irreducibility of powers; 7.1. The irreducibility of power-ascriptions; 7.2. The ontological irreducibility of powers; 7.3. Powers without 'natural necessity' and essentialism; 7.4. Conclusion; 8 How agent-causation works III: from causal powers to agent-causation; 8.1. Substance-causation among inanimate substances; 8.2. Agent-causation by human beings
- 8.3. The proposed account and the standard objections against agent-causation9 Are agent-causal powers reducible to microproperties?; 9.1. Five degrees of dependence of the properties of composites; 9.2. The dependence of human powers on microproperties; 9.3. Human powers and 'downward causation'; 9.4. Summary; 10 Intentional agency and acting for reasons; 10.1. Davidson's challenge and the purported causal element in reasons-explanations; 10.2. Reacting to the challenge-why (surprisingly) causalism itself does not provide an answer
- 10.3. Some unsuccessful non-causal answers to Davidson's challenge11 Understanding human agency; 11.1. Acting for a reason as following a standard of success; 11.2. Putting it all together; References; Index; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; Q; R; S; T; U; V; W; X