scholarly journals Knowledge as Action

Epistemology ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 71-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernest Sosa
Keyword(s):  
Intentional Action ◽  
Normative Structure ◽  
Intentional Actions ◽  
Special Case

This chapter argues that judgment and knowledge itself are forms of intentional action. Such action falls under a certain normative structure of success, competence, and aptness, or success that manifests competence. Judgment is a special case falling under that structure. The chapter explains that intentional actions come in two sorts. An attempt is an intentional action, an endeavor to attain a certain objective. An attempt can fail and remain a mere attempt, whereas an achievement is a certain sort of successful attempt. Intentional actions are one sort of performance. Some performances are also aimings, however, without being intentional. These, too, can fail and remain mere aimings, to be distinguished from those that are successful.

Understanding the Past, Predicting the Future

2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (12) ◽  
pp. 1490-1497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc J. Buehner
Keyword(s):  
Causal Relation ◽  
Action Planning ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Motor Command ◽  
Temporal Binding ◽  
Binding Effect ◽  
The Past ◽  
Intentional Actions ◽  
Ambiguity Reduction ◽  
Special Case

Temporal binding refers to a subjective shortening of elapsed time between actions and their resultant consequences. Originally, it was thought that temporal binding is specific to motor learning and arises as a consequence of either sensory adaptation or the associative principles of the forward model of motor command. Both of these interpretations assume that the binding effect is rooted in the motor system and, critically, that it is driven by intentional action planning. The research reported here demonstrates that both intentional actions and mechanical causes result in temporal binding, which suggests that intentional action is not necessary for temporal binding and that binding results from the causal relation linking actions with their consequences. Intentional binding is thus a special case of more general causal binding, which can be explained by a theory of Bayesian ambiguity reduction.

scholarly journals The Double Intentionality of Moral Intentional Actions: Scotus and Ockham on Interior and Exterior Acts

Topoi ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonja Schierbaum
Keyword(s):  
Intentional Action ◽  
Faculty Psychology ◽  
Intentional Actions ◽  
The Mind

AbstractAny account of intentional action has to deal with the problem of how such actions are individuated. Medieval accounts, however, crucially differ from contemporary ones in at least three respects: (i) for medieval authors, individuation is not a matter of description, as it is according to contemporary, ‘Anscombian’ views; rather, it is a metaphysical matter. (ii) Medieval authors discuss intentional action on the basis of faculty psychology, whereas contemporary accounts are not committed to this kind of psychology. Connected to the use of faculty psychology is (iii) the distinction between interior and exterior acts. Roughly, interior acts are mental as opposed to physical acts, whereas exterior acts are acts of physical powers, such as of moving one’s body. Of course, contemporary accounts are not committed to this distinction between two ontologically different kinds of acts. Rather, they might be committed to views consistent with physicalist approaches to the mind. The main interpretative task in this paper is to clarify how Scotus and Ockham explain moral intentional action in terms of the role and involvement of these kinds of acts respectively. I argue that Scotus’s account is close to contemporary, ‘Anscombian’ accounts, whereas Ockham’s account is incompatible with them.

scholarly journals Folk Psychology and Proximal Intentions

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfred Mele ◽  
Thomas Nadelhoffer ◽  
Maria Khoudary
Keyword(s):  
Folk Psychology ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Garden Variety ◽  
Intentional Actions ◽  
The Relationship

There is a longstanding debate in philosophy concerning the relationship between intention and intentional action. According to the Single Phenomenon View, while one need not intend to A in order to A intentionally, one nevertheless needs to have an A-relevant intention. This view has recently come under criticism by those who think that one can A intentionally without any relevant intention at all. On this view, neither distal nor proximal intentions are necessary for intentional action. In this paper we present the results of two studies that explore folk ascriptions of proximal intentions and intentional actions in garden-variety, non-moral cases. Our findings suggest a very tight relationship between the two. We argue that the results from these two studies cohere with the Single Phenomenon View and give theorists who reject this view on conceptual grounds reason to worry.

scholarly journals Dogs distinguish human intentional and unintentional action

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Britta Schünemann ◽  
Judith Keller ◽  
Hannes Rakoczy ◽  
Tanya Behne ◽  
Juliane Bräuer
Keyword(s):  
Intentional Action ◽  
Human Behaviour ◽  
Human Actions ◽  
Intentional Actions ◽  
Unintentional Action

AbstractWhen dogs interact with humans, they often show appropriate reactions to human intentional action. But it is unclear from these everyday observations whether the dogs simply respond to the action outcomes or whether they are able to discriminate between different categories of actions. Are dogs able to distinguish intentional human actions from unintentional ones, even when the action outcomes are the same? We tested dogs’ ability to discriminate these action categories by adapting the so-called “Unwilling vs. Unable” paradigm. This paradigm compares subjects’ reactions to intentional and unintentional human behaviour. All dogs received three conditions: In the unwilling-condition, an experimenter intentionally withheld a reward from them. In the two unable-conditions, she unintentionally withheld the reward, either because she was clumsy or because she was physically prevented from giving the reward to the dog. Dogs clearly distinguished in their spontaneous behaviour between unwilling- and unable-conditions. This indicates that dogs indeed distinguish intentional actions from unintentional behaviour. We critically discuss our findings with regard to dogs’ understanding of human intentional action.

Children’s Judgments of Epistemic and Moral Agents: From Situations to Intentions

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 344-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa A. Koenig ◽  
Valerie Tiberius ◽  
J. Kiley Hamlin
Keyword(s):  
Intentional Action ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Epistemic Agency ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Intentional Actions ◽  
Situational Constraints

Children’s evaluations of moral and epistemic agents crucially depend on their discerning that an agent’s actions were performed intentionally. Here we argue that children’s epistemic and moral judgments reveal practices of forgiveness and blame, trust and mistrust, and objection or disapproval and that such practices are supported by children’s monitoring of the situational constraints on agents. Inherent in such practices is the understanding that agents are responsible for actions performed under certain conditions but not others. We discuss a range of situational constraints on children’s early epistemic and moral evaluations and clarify how these situational constraints serve to support children’s identification of intentional actions. By monitoring the situation, children distinguish intentional from less intentional action and selectively hold epistemic and moral agents accountable. We argue that these findings inform psychological and philosophical theorizing about attributions of moral and epistemic agency and responsibility.

scholarly journals Time perception and the experience of agency in meditation and hypnosis

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Lush ◽  
Zoltan Dienes
Keyword(s):  
Time Perception ◽  
Mindfulness Meditation ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
Voluntary Action ◽  
Intentional Binding ◽  
Related Information ◽  
Intentional Actions ◽  
Intention To Move ◽  
Perception Of Time

Mindfulness meditation and hypnosis are related in opposing ways to awareness of intentions. The cold control theory of hypnosis proposes that hypnotic responding involves the experience of involuntariness while performing an actually intentional action. Hypnosis therefore relies upon inaccurate metacognition about intentional actions and experiences. Mindfulness meditation centrally involves awareness of intentions and is associated with improved metacognitive access to intentions. Therefore, mindfulness meditators and highly hypnotisable people may lie at opposite ends of a spectrum with regard to metacognitive access to intention-related information. Here we review the theoretical background and evidence for differences in the metacognition of intentions in these groups, as revealed by chronometric measures of the awareness of voluntary action: the timing of an intention to move (Libet’s ‘W’ judgements) and the compressed perception of time between an intentional action and its outcome (‘intentional binding’). We review these measures and critically evaluate their proposed connection to the experience of volition and sense of agency.

Desire, Foresight, Intentions, and Intentional Actions: Probing Folk Intuitions

2006 ◽  
Vol 6 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 133-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Nadelhoffer
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Research Program ◽  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Philosophy Of Action ◽  
Intentional Actions ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Folk Intuitions

AbstractA number of philosophers working under the rubric of "experimental philosophy" have recently begun focusing on analyzing the concepts of ordinary language and investigating the intuitions of laypersons in an empirically informed way. In a series of papers these philosophers – who often work in collaboration with psychologists – have presented the results of empirical studies aimed at proving folk intuitions in areas as diverse as ethics, epistemology, free will, and the philosophy of action. In this paper, I contribute to this research program by discussing the results of some new experiments that further probe folk intuitions about the relationship between desire, foresight, intent, intentional action, and moral considerations.

scholarly journals Dissecting the neurofunctional bases of intentional action

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (28) ◽  
pp. 7440-7445 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Zapparoli ◽  
Silvia Seghezzi ◽  
Paola Scifo ◽  
Alberto Zerbi ◽  
Giuseppe Banfi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Supplementary Motor Area ◽  
Brain Connectivity ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
The Self ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Neural Systems ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
Intentional Actions ◽  
Two Sides ◽  
Decision Cost

Here we challenge and present evidence that expands the what, when, and whether anatomical model of intentional action, which states that internally driven decisions about the content and timing of our actions and about whether to act at all depend on separable neural systems, anatomically segregated along the medial wall of the frontal lobe. In our fMRI event-related paradigm, subjects acted following conditional cues or following their intentions. The content of the actions, their timing, or their very occurrence were the variables investigated, together with the modulating factor of intentionality. Besides a shared activation of the pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) for all components and the SMA proper for the when component, we found specific activations beyond the mesial prefrontal wall involving the parietal cortex for the what component or subcortical gray structures for the when component. Moreover, we found behavioral, functional, anatomical, and brain connectivity evidence that the self-driven decisions on whether to act require a higher interhemispheric cooperation: This was indexed by a specific activation of the corpus callosum whereby the less the callosal activation, the greater was the decision cost at the time of the action in the whether trials. Furthermore, tractography confirmed that the fibers passing through the callosal focus of activation connect the two sides of the frontal lobes involved in intentional trials. This is evidence of non-unitary neural foundations for the processes involved in intentional actions with the pre-SMA/ACC operating as an intentional hub. These findings may guide the exploration of specific instances of disturbed intentionality.

The Reference to Desire in Reasons for Action

2019 ◽  
pp. 42-75
Author(s):  
Ingmar Persson
Keyword(s):  
Internal State ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
Intentional Actions

It is here argued that when we act for a reason, the consequent of this reason(-conditional) must specify something that we desire. Intelligent desires, which are involved in intentional action, are distinguished from non-intelligent desires. It is intelligent desires which are ‘decisive’ that determine our intentional actions. Such desires can be said to be formed by decisions, but not necessarily decisions preceded by deliberation. You have an occurrent decisive desire to cause p now just in case you are in an internal state which, along with its underlying thought that you can now cause p (and thereby cause consequences specified by reasons that you may have for causing p), causes something to become a fact because you think that it is that p (and thereby will have the specified consequences).

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