New
Waves in Philosophy of Action
by Jesús
H. Aguilar, Andrei A. Buckareff and Keith Frankish (eds.)
Reviewed
by María G. Navarro
New
Waves in Philosophy, a book collection that stands out for giving a snapshot of research in all areas of philosophy is a
successful editorial project addressed by Vincent F. Hendricks and Duncan
Pritchard. New Waves in Philosophy of
Action is one of its last titles, edited by Jesús H. Aguilar, Andrei A.
Buckareff and Keith Frankish.
The book is aimed at the researchers of all fields and readers in general
interested in this sub-discipline of philosophy very difficult to localize (is
it part of a sub-discipline such as metaphysics or maybe part of the philosophy
of mind?). What is and how can we know the nature of intentions and its role in
action?
In order to answer to this and other questions, Aguilar, Buckareff and
Frankish have grouped New Waves in
Philosophy of Action around four themes: Foundations of action and agency
(pp.11-77); Autonomy (pp.79-140); Free agency (pp.141-216) and Action and
agency in context (pp.217-273).
It is difficult to determine the place of philosophy of action from an
academic point of view (an aspect well-justified by editors in its Introduction
in pages between 1-9) but it is fascinating its important and increasing role in
current research areas such as, for example, experimental philosophy,
folk-epistemology or agent-causal approaches (a goal well-selected by Aguilar,
Buckareff and Frankish, developed by thirteen authors and twelve chapters).
The book is not only a significant contribution in the field of
philosophy of action but in cognate areas as the mentioned (agency, action,
epistemology, metaphysics, etc.). The editors present authors with a special
capacity to define state-of-the-art and make a significant contribution to the
field in the years to come. Increasing collaboration between philosophers,
psychologists and neuroscientists in the study of agency and action will change
this sub-discipline of philosophy as well as the other mentioned disciplines.
Markus E. Schlosser analyses the Causal Theory of Action (CTA),
according to which an agent event counts as an action if it is caused by
appropriate agent-involving mental states. Schlosser asked himself if the CTA
fails to define and capture the role played by the human agent in certain forms
of action or, in others words, if CTA could capture the phenomenon of agency
thanks to some supplementing of the theory in various ways. Carolina Sartorio describes
and analyses important asymmetries between conditions for intentionality acting
and for omitting to act. Thomas Nadelhoffer presents a work in the experimental
philosophy of action asking us if our judgments about whether or not an action
is intentional are determined by moral evaluations of the action’s outcome.
François Schroeter presents the distinction between ‘basic executive
control’ and ‘autonomous control’. With the first we refer to the case when an
agent exercises the guidance necessary to ensure the execution of his or her
actions. With the ‘autonomous control’ we refer to species of control that
manifest our capacity for self-government. Shall we need to supplement our
theories of intentional action to get an account of autonomous control?
Bill Pollard examines when a motive is internal and when an internal and
external motive is related to aspects of the agent’s psychology. Pollard
rejects the theory of identification and presents a definition of ‘habit’ more
appropriate to explain why and when an agent is constituted by his or her
habits. Yonatan Shemmer criticises the so-called dependence thesis, according
to which an agent performs an action only if it identifies with the desire that
motivates it. Can an action be autonomous even if the agent does not identify
with it? Matthew Soteriou presents an interesting analysis of two aspects of
our reflexive thinking: ‘suppositions’ and ‘bracketing’. With a supposition a
proposition that is not believed temporally is adopted as a premise of an
argument. And with bracketing a proposition that is believed is temporally
excluded for the purpose of its epistemic evaluation. These particular acts are
a kind of self-imposed constraints on our reasoning process, and with them we
manifest ourselves in a particular form of agency and autonomy.
Manuel Vargas presents analysis of the concept of free will in its connection
with metaphysical definitions and ethical concerns. Neil Levy focuses his
chapter on the role of luck in free will traditional debate. Eddy Nahmias and
Dylan Murray present an essay on experimental debates about free will, and they
ask themselves if folk-intuitions have a role in a correctly understanding of
causal determinism, free will and moral responsibility.
Tim Bayne presents the problem of how we should understand the
intentional structure and function of agentive experience. Are agentive
experiences descriptive so they represent things as they are; or are they
directive, so they represent our experiences as how we want things to be, like
desires and intentions? Lisa Bortolotti presents an analysis of the role that
psychotic delusions could have in the guidance of action. Are their contents
objects of genuine belief or not? Sara Rachel Chant explores the nature of
actions performed by more than one agent. Usually we tend to affirm that such
actions proceed by identifying a set of reasons by each of the participants in
the collective action, however Chant identifies a set of difficult cases.
With all these essays in philosophy of action the editors show us the
theoretical and practical possibilities of this complex and even paradoxical
sub-discipline. The work of the philosophers presented in New Waves in Philosophy of Action represent not only an impressive
contribution to current philosophy of action in its epistemological, ethical
and metaphysical dimension but also a well-structured and justified book
related to our existence as human agents.
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