Causal Theories of Action

1987 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 831-854 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Costa
Keyword(s):  
Intentional State ◽  
Causal Connection ◽  
Intentional States ◽  
Bodily Movement ◽  
Composite Event ◽  
Theories Of Action ◽  
The Right ◽  
Causal Theories ◽  
Bodily Movements

Causal theories of action are attempts to develop an account of actions in terms of events (typically bodily movements and their effects) which have the right kind of causal ancestry. The causal ancestry must be traced back to some kind of intentional state (or combination of intentional states) in the agent, such intentional state (or states) must have the right kind of content, and it must cause the bodily movement (or other effect) in the ‘right’ way. Causal accounts differ on the nature of the intentional state, the nature of the content it must have, and the specification of the ‘right’ kind of causal connection to bodily movements or other effects. Causal accounts also differ on the identification of the action itself. Some acounts say that the action is the bodily movement, provided that it was caused in the right way and had the right kind of effects. Others identify the action with the triggering intentional state (called a volition or trying), provided that it has the right kind of effects. Yet others identify the action with the composite event of the intentional state's causing the appropriate effects. Finally there are those which fail to identify the action with any of these events or combinations of them.

Are there Non-Propositional Intentional States?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Searle
Keyword(s):  
Intentional State ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Intentional States ◽  
The World ◽  
Essential Idea ◽  
Limited Class ◽  
The Mind

Intentionality is that feature of the mind by which it is directed at or about objects and states of affairs in the world. Intentionality is simply aboutness or directedness. “Proposition” is more difficult, but the essential idea is this: every intentional state has a content. Sometimes it seems that the content just enables a state to refer to an object. So if John loves Sally, then it appears that the content of his love is simply “Sally”. But if John believes that it is raining, then the specification of the content requires an entire “that” clause. “Are there non-propositional intentional states?” amounts to the question, “Are there intentional states whose content does not require specification with a ‘that’ clause?” This chapter explores whether there are any non-propositional states, and suggest that a very limited class, such as boredom, is in fact non-propositional.

scholarly journals Characteristics and Dynamics of Full Arch Distalization Using Transpalatal Arches with Midpalatal and Interradicular Miniscrews as Temporary Anchorage Devices: A Preliminary Finite Element Analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Mashallah Khanehmasjedi ◽  
Sepideh Bagheri ◽  
Vahid Rakhshan ◽  
Mojtaba Hasani
Keyword(s):  
Finite Element Analysis ◽  
Finite Element ◽  
Stress Distribution ◽  
Orthodontic Appliances ◽  
Element Analysis ◽  
Midpalatal Suture ◽  
Second Molar ◽  
Bodily Movement ◽  
Anterior Teeth ◽  
The Right

Introduction. Miniscrews have proved quite effective in fixed orthodontic treatment. They can be placed in areas like palatal interradicular zones or midpalatal suture. Despite the value of these methods and their ever-increasing use, their characteristics are not assessed before when implanted in palatal interradicular areas or in the midpalatal suture. We aimed to assess, for the first time, the dynamics of full arch distalization using such miniscrews. Methods. A 3D model of maxilla with all permanent dentition was created from a CT scan volume. Tissues were segmented and differentiated. Afterward, miniscrews and appliances were designed, and the whole model was registered within a finite element analysis software by assigning proper mechanical properties to tissues and orthodontic appliances. The full arches were distalized using transpalatal arches with miniscrews as anchorage devices (in two different models). The extents of stresses and patterns of movements of various elements (teeth, miniscrews, appliances, tissues) were estimated. Results and Conclusions. Comparing the two models, it is obvious that in both models, the stress distribution is the highest in the TPA arms and the head of the miniscrew where the spring is connected. In comparison with the displacement in the X-axis, the “mesial in” rotation is seen in the first molar of both models. But there is one exception and that is the “mesial out” rotation of the right second molar. In all measurements, the amount of movement in Model 2 (with palatal interradicular miniscrews) is more than that in Model 1 (with midpalatal miniscrew). In the Y-axis, more tipping is seen in Model 2, especially the anterior teeth (detorque) and the first molar, but in Model 1, bodily movement of the first molar is more evident. Along the Z-axis, the mesial intrusion of the first molar and the distal extrusion of this tooth can be seen in both models. Again, the displacement values are higher in the second model (with interradicular miniscrews). In comparison with micromotion and stress distribution of miniscrews, in Model 1, maximum stress and micromotion is observed at the head of the miniscrew where it is attached to the spring. Of course, this amount of micromotion increases over time. The same is true for Model 2, but with a lower micromotion. As for the amount of stress, the stress distribution in both miniscrews of both models is almost uniform and rather severe.

Elite Rituals at Scandinavian Assemblies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Sanmark
Keyword(s):  
Societal Change ◽  
Assembly Features ◽  
The Right ◽  
And Function ◽  
Meaning And Function ◽  
Assembly Site ◽  
Bodily Movements

This chapter builds on the evidence of thing sites as elite foci in the landscape. Previous chapters have shown that the elite strived for the ‘right’ site architecture and competed with rivals through the design of their thing sites. The assembly features were not only symbolic, but also played important roles in the various assembly site rituals. The majority of these rituals seem to have been elite-driven and modifications to the sites can therefore be seen as reflections of societal change, for example in terms of ruler ship and religion. In this chapter, the identified assembly site features will be investigated in terms of their meaning and function in elite rituals carried out at these sites. The differing roles and experiences of the thing participants and the attendees add to the multi-layered nature of the assembly gatherings The assembly rituals can be defined as ‘commemorative’, which entail performances, that is evocation and declarations of key components of ritual narratives, but also bodily movements, such as gestures, postures and motion. In addition, dramatic spectacle tends to be employed to strengthen memory creation.

Belief

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Internal State ◽  
Propositional Attitude ◽  
Special Theory ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Intentional State ◽  
Theory Of Relativity ◽  
Public Language ◽  
Vice Chancellor ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Way

We believe that there is coffee over there; we believe the special theory of relativity; we believe the Vice-Chancellor; and some of us believe in God. But plausibly what is fundamental is believing that something is the case – believing a proposition, as it is usually put. To believe a theory is to believe the propositions that make up the theory, to believe a person is to believe some proposition advanced by them; and to believe in God is to believe the proposition that God exists. Thus belief is said to be a propositional attitude or intentional state: to believe is to take the attitude of belief to some proposition. It is about what its propositional object is about (God, coffee, or whatever). We can think of the propositional object of a belief as the way the belief represents things as being – its content, as it is often called. We state what we believe with indicative sentences in ‘that’-clauses, as in ‘Mary believes that the Democrats will win the next election’. But belief in the absence of language is possible. A dog may believe that there is food in the bowl in front of it. Accordingly philosophers have sought accounts of belief that allow a central role to sentences – it cannot be an accident that finding the right sentence is the way to capture what someone believes – while allowing that creatures without a language can have beliefs. One way of doing this is to construe beliefs as relations to inner sentences somehow inscribed in the brain. On this view although dogs do not have a public language, to the extent that they have beliefs they have something sentence-like in their heads. An alternative tradition focuses on the way belief when combined with desire leads to behaviour, and analyses belief in terms of behavioural dispositions or more recently as the internal state that is, in combination with other mental states, responsible for the appropriate behavioural dispositions. An earlier tradition associated with the British Empiricists views belief as a kind of pale imitation of perceptual experience. But recent work on belief largely takes for granted a sharp distinction between belief and the various mental images that may or may not accompany it.

Reasons and Action Explanation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Wald ◽  
Sergio Tenenbaum
Keyword(s):  
Intentional Action ◽  
Theory Of Action ◽  
Action Explanation ◽  
Theories Of Action ◽  
Causal Theories

The problem of deviant causation has been a serious obstacle for causal theories of action. We suggest that attending to the problem of deviant causation reveals two related problems for causal theories. First, it threatens the reductive ambitions of causal theories of intentional action. Second, it suggests that such a theory fails to account for how the agent herself is guided by her reasons. Focusing on the second of these, we argue that the problem of guidance turns out to be related to a number of other issues in the literature on action explanation, and that it is much more general: it threatens not only causal theories but any theory of action. Finally, we suggest that a certain version of the view that acting has a constitutive or formal aim can overcome this problem.

Actions, Intentions, and Awareness and Causal Deviancy

1998 ◽  
pp. 38-52
Author(s):  
Kevin Magill
Keyword(s):  
Intentional States ◽  
Letting Go ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Right

In Davidson's example of causal deviancy, a climber knows that he can save himself from plummeting to his death by letting go of a rope connecting him to a companion who has lost his footing, but the thought of the contemplated act so upsets him that he lets go unintentionally. Causation of behavior by intentional states that rationalize it is not enough for it to count as acting. Therefore, the behavior must be caused in 'the right way' or by the Right Kind of Cause (RKC). The immediate cause in Davidson's and other examples of causal immediacy is the agent's awareness or contemplation of what he or she is intending or thinking of doing, which is either caused by, or implicit in the agent's awareness of, his or her intentions or beliefs and desires. I argue that RKC can only be a mechanism-the Will-whose operation we are not directly aware of, but only indirectly once the action is underway.

Reflexive Transparency, Mental Content, and Externalism

1998 ◽  
pp. 46-53
Author(s):  
Paul Bernier
Keyword(s):  
Mental Content ◽  
Intentional State ◽  
Intentional States ◽  
External Conditions ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Crucial Assumption

It has been disputed whether an externalist conception of the individuation of intentional states, such as beliefs and desires, is compatible with self-knowledge, that is, the claim that one's judgments about one's intentional states are non-evidential, non-inferential, and authoritative. I want to argue that these theses are indeed incompatible, notwithstanding an important objection to this incompatibility claim. The worry has been raised that if externalism is true, then for a subject to know, say, that he or she believes that p, the subject would need to know, on the basis of some evidence, the external conditions which determine the belief's content. Thus, externalism would be incompatible with self-knowledge. But many philosophers have accepted an objection suggesting that this worry is mistaken because in order to have a belief one need not know the metaphysical conditions determining its content, even if they are externalist. And thus, the subject's reflexive judgment about the belief would not need to rest on evidence about those external conditions. But this objection rests on a crucial assumption according to which mental content is reflexively transparent in the sense that a subject could not judge that she or he has an intentional state and be mistaken about the content of her or his state, even if the content is externally determined. My main purpose is not reflexively transparent on the assumption of externalism and, thus, self-knowledge and externalism are incompatible.

ON THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE INSTITUTION OF LEGAL COSTS AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH LOSSES IN THE ASPECT OF MODERN LEGAL POLICY

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 30-41
Author(s):  
S.F. AFANASIEV
Keyword(s):  
Positive Outcome ◽  
Causal Connection ◽  
Legal Policy ◽  
Procedural Law ◽  
Administration Of Justice ◽  
Analysis And Synthesis ◽  
General Scientific ◽  
Legal Costs ◽  
Contractual Obligations ◽  
The Right

The article is devoted to the legal nature of legal costs in the context of domestic legal policy. The relevance of this study is evidenced by the lack of proper coverage and a more or less consistent understanding of this problem in legal science, which is inevitably extrapolated to the legislation and applied components of domestic legal life. In order to form a comprehensive idea of the institution of legal expenses, general scientific (logical (induction, deduction, analysis and synthesis), systemic and functional) and private law (historical-legal, formal-legal, comparative-legal) methods are used. It is argued that any presence of a right or its absence, violation or non-violation of it is established only through a formal jurisdictional process, as a result of which a person has expenses and the right to compensation in case of a positive outcome. It is stated that a legitimate fact for the submission of claims for the recovery of legal costs is not jus or some traditional conditions of civil circulation, but judicium and its legal force. It is noted that there is no direct causal connection between jus and the procedural institute of judicial expenses, but there is between satisfaction of actio and subsequent award of such expenses. It is concluded that legal costs do not correlate with the discovery of contractual or non-contractual obligations, as well as the need for compensation for harm to a person who suffered from a guilty act. Being an institute of civil procedural law, court costs are not recoverable not because of the indicated, but because of the administration of justice in a civil or administrative case and are directly dependent on its final outcome.

Belief

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Braddon-Mitchell ◽  
Frank Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Internal State ◽  
Propositional Attitude ◽  
Special Theory ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Intentional State ◽  
Theory Of Relativity ◽  
Public Language ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Way

We believe that there is coffee over there; we believe the special theory of relativity; we believe the surgeon; some of us believe in God. But plausibly what is fundamental is believing that something is the case – believing a proposition, as it is usually put. To believe a theory is to believe the propositions that make up the theory, to believe a person is to believe some proposition advanced by them; and to believe in God is to believe the proposition that God exists. Thus belief is said to be a propositional attitude or intentional state: to believe is to take the attitude of belief to some proposition. It is about what its propositional object is about (God, the operation, or whatever). We can think of the propositional object of a belief as the way the belief represents things as being – its content, as it is often called. We state what we believe with indicative sentences in ‘that’-clauses, as in ‘Mary believes that the Democrats will win the next election ’. But belief in the absence of language is possible. A dog may believe that there is food in the bowl in front of it. Accordingly philosophers have sought accounts of belief that allow a central role to sentences – it cannot be an accident that finding the right sentence is the way to capture what some person believes – while allowing that creatures without a language can have beliefs. One way of doing this is to construe beliefs as relations to inner sentences somehow inscribed in the brain. On this view, although dogs do not have a public language, to the extent that they have beliefs they have something sentence-like in their heads. An alternative tradition focuses on the way belief when combined with desire leads to behaviour, and analyses belief in terms of behavioural dispositions or more recently as the internal state that is, in combination with other mental states, responsible for the appropriate behavioural dispositions. An earlier tradition associated with the British empiricists views belief as a kind of pale imitation of perceptual experience. But recent work on belief largely takes for granted a sharp distinction between belief and the various mental images that may or may not accompany it. A focus of recent discussions of belief has been the extent to which what a subject believes is a function of their surroundings. Everyone agrees that what subjects believe is causally influenced by their surroundings. The sun’s impact on my sense organs causes me to believe that it is sunny. But many argue that the role of subjects’ surroundings in determining what is believed outruns their causal effects.

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