VI-Agency and Two-Way Powers

Alvarez, Maria

doi:10.1111/j.1467-9264.2013.00347.x

Cited by 37 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…And the term 'behavior' is intended to include linguistic behavior, as well as refrainings, etc. (see Alvarez, 2013). 9 In saying this I am not endorsing the possibility of a conditional analysis of a disposition in terms of trigger, circumstances and manifestation.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Desires, Dispositions and the Explanation of Action

Alvarez¹

2017

Oxford Scholarship Online

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We often explain human actions by reference to the desires of the person whose actions we are explaining: “Jane is studying law because she wants to become a judge.” But how do desires explain actions? A widely accepted view is that desires are dispositional states that are manifested in behavior. Accordingly, desires explain actions as ordinary physical dispositions, such as fragility or conductivity, explain their manifestations, namely causally. This paper argues that desires, unlike ordinary physical dispositions, are “manifestation-dependent dispositions”: dispositions whose attribution depends on their having been manifested. This feature of desires, I suggest, favours a “context-placing” approach to understanding how desires explain actions.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Desires, Dispositions and the Explanation of Action

Alvarez¹

2017

Oxford Scholarship Online

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“…To say that S is able to honestly assert that p is to say that S has the power both to honestly assert it and not to honestly assert it (see Kenny , ch. 7 and, more recently, Alvarez ). It is not to say merely that S is disposed to honestly assert it, in the way that fragile objects are disposed to break, nor (if this is something different) that there is some specifiable circumstances under which, necessarily, S will honestly assert that p.…”

Section: Doxastic Self‐knowledgementioning

confidence: 93%

To Believe is to Know that You Believe

Marcus

2016

Dialectica

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“…Now of course, in itself this is not a satisfying answer at all as it only solves the problem of causation-by-states by positing an equally contested form of causation-by-agents. Nevertheless it is important to emphasize that a Wittgensteinian approach does not leave room for causation-by-mental-states but, on a more positive note, that there are actually interesting recent attempts to develop views on causation that do offer possibilities for providing a Wittgensteinian answer to how intending agents could make things happen (see for example Mayr, 2011; Alvarez, 2013; Jacobs and O’Connor, 2013).…”

Section: Intentions and Patternsmentioning

confidence: 99%

No Intentions in the Brain: A Wittgensteinian Perspective on the Science of Intention

Kalis

2019

Front. Psychol.

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In their paper “Why we may not find intentions in the brain,” Uithol et al. (2014) convincingly argue that “the processes underlying action initiation and control are considerably more dynamic and context sensitive than the concept of intention can allow for.” Their paper could be seen as a critical note to the widespread tendency to search for identifiable neurocorrelates of mental concepts. Their more specific suggestion is that the absence of clear neural correlates undermines the traditional understanding of intention. In this paper I will try to take their argument a step further. First of all, I will argue that our folk psychology leaves room for various understandings of intentions, and that the concept of intention discussed by Uithol et al. is an academic concept that has its roots in the causal theory of action and in functionalist approaches to cognition. I will argue that both these paradigms are contested, and that there seems to be theoretical wiggle room for alternative understandings of intention. Subsequently I outline such an alternative perspective based on Wittgensteinian philosophy of psychology, emphasizing the regulative role of intention talk. However, the proposed understanding raises the question how to think about neural realization: is intention talk “just” talk, or do intentions really exist? I will propose that intention talk should be understood as a form of pattern recognition, and that the patterns involved are extended in both space and time. The conclusion outlines some important implications for the neuroscientific investigation of intentions.

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VI-Agency and Two-Way Powers

Abstract: In this paper I propose a way of characterizing human agency in terms of the concept of a two‐way power. I outline this conception of agency, defend it against some objections, and briefly indicate how it relates to free agency and to moral praise‐ and blameworthiness.

Cited by 37 publications

References 16 publications

Desires, Dispositions and the Explanation of Action

Desires, Dispositions and the Explanation of Action

To Believe is to Know that You Believe

No Intentions in the Brain: A Wittgensteinian Perspective on the Science of Intention

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