Consciousness and Intentionality of Action

1998 ◽  
pp. 215-220
Author(s):  
Pär Sundström
Keyword(s):  
Intentional Action ◽  
Partial Answer ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Wide Spread ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Person Account

One much discussed issue in contemporary philosophy is the relation between consciousness and intentionality. Philosophers debate whether consciousness and intentionality are somehow ‘connected’; whether we have reason to be more optimistic about an ‘objective,’ ‘scientific’ or ‘third person’ ‘account’ of intentionality than about an analogous account of consciousness. This paper is intended as a limited contribution to that debate. I shall be concerned only with the intentionality of action. Not everything which is true of intentionality of action is true of intentionality of other phenomena, such as beliefs. I shall discuss the question, ‘What is the intentionality of action?’ More specifically, I shall discuss one partial answer to this question: that a necessary condition of an agent performing a certain intentional action is that the agent is conscious of performing that action. This answer is fairly unpopular in contemporary philosophy. In this paper, I shall try to say something about the ground for the rather wide-spread philosophical resistance to the answer, and I shall also outline the kind of considerations that I think are required to judge whether a wedge can or cannot be driven between consciousness and intentionality of action.

scholarly journals The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge by MT. Anderson & E. Yelchin

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arwen Thysse
Keyword(s):  
Public Libraries ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Medieval Studies ◽  
The World ◽  
Bachelor Of Arts ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Person Account ◽  
The University ◽  
Narrative Function

Anderson, M.T. and Eugene Yelchin. The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge. Candlewick Press, 2018. The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge throws the reader into a topsy-turvy wonderland with the gripping adventure of two unlikely heroes, Brangwain Spurge and Werfel the Archivist. These two historians find themselves caught in a myriad of misunderstandings as they meet at the crux of a diplomatic mission between their warring nations of elves and goblins. An elfin historian turned diplomat and spy, Spurge must confront his own deeply entrenched prejudices against goblins, while his enthusiastic and well-intentioned goblin host, Werfel, attempts to guide him through an unfamiliar culture. Through a series of entertaining mishaps and cultural misunderstandings, M.T. Anderson and Eugene Yelchin use their vivid characters and narrative style to craft an enjoyable story with underlying messages about cultural conflict and the ways in which prejudice colours our view of others. Most commendable in this book is the authors’ brilliant use of visual and text media to craft a work showing how individuals can understand the same events in wildly different ways. The mixed media drawings not only add a striking visual force to the novel, but they also serve a narrative function by showing the world through the eyes and imagination of Spurge. It becomes clear that Spurge’s understanding of his experiences conflicts with the more objective third-person account of events, illustrating how Spurge’s view of the world has been heavily skewed by his institutionalized prejudices. As Werfel quite wisely says: “Isn’t it so fascinating how in different countries, we have different views of the same events?” This book is appropriate for the intended age group of individuals aged ten to fourteen, but it can also be enjoyed by older teens and adults. With its compelling design and timely messages, this book would be an excellent addition to school and public libraries.  Highly Recommended: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: Arwen Thysse Arwen Thysse is a graduate of the University of Alberta’s Bachelor of Arts program and the University of Toronto’s Master of Medieval Studies program. She is also an avid musician, and enjoys children’s books.

scholarly journals COVID 19: a personal account of a physiotherapist

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 140
Author(s):  
Vandana Dua ◽  
Puneet K. Dua
Keyword(s):  
Healthcare Worker ◽  
Healthcare Workers ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Personal Account ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Working Day ◽  
Person Account ◽  
The City ◽  
Essential Service

<p class="abstract">Amidst the growing tentacles of coronavirus SARS2 in the densely populated Delhi (India), the healthcare workers and other essential service providers are working day and night to keep the city going. All are working with a fear, a fear of getting entrapped in the tentacles any moment. Here is a personal account of myself, a healthcare worker who got entrapped, thankfully not getting strangulated, having recovered early without getting trolled physically but certainly, psychologically, socially and emotionally. It is my first person account as being a patient myself, second person account as a caretaker of my family and a third person account as a therapist to my patients. Also, a note of physiotherapeutic management of COVID-19 is included.</p><p class="abstract"> </p>

The Apocalypse of Paul (nhc v,2) as a Valentinian Baptismal Liturgy of Ascent

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 212-234
Author(s):  
Michael S. Domeracki
Keyword(s):  
Second Century ◽  
Clear Indication ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Ritual Studies ◽  
2 Corinthians ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Person Account ◽  
The Third Person ◽  
Ritual Practices

The Apocalypse of Paul (nhc v,2), a second-century Valentinian text, imagines Paul’s progression up to the tenth level of heaven. Not only is this a reference to the third-person account in 2 Corinthians, but also a clear indication of the baptismal liturgy in the Valentinian text as the audience joins Paul after the third heaven and ascends through the upper levels while reciting the visionary tale in the first person after their initiation. Ultimately, this paper shows how the second-century Valentinian memory of Paul is a coalescence of his mystical religiosity and authority and the imagistic ritual practices of the Valentinians. Methodologically, this paper follows a traditional historical and text critical approach, augmented with social memory theory and cognitive ritual studies. In this paper, it is argued that the Apocalypse of Paul integrates of the memory of Paul and his ascent according to 2 Corinthians with contemporary Valentinian ritual practices.

Why conscious free will both is and isn't an illusion

2004 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 677-677 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Velmans
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
First Person ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Person Account ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Conscious Will

Wegner's analysis of the illusion of conscious will is close to my own account of how conscious experiences relate to brain processes. But our analyses differ somewhat on how conscious will is not an illusion. Wegner argues that once conscious will arises it enters causally into subsequent mental processing. I argue that while his causal story is accurate, it remains a first-person story. Conscious free will is not an illusion in the sense that this first-person story is compatible with and complementary to a third-person account of voluntary processing in the mind/brain.

scholarly journals Revisiting Frankfurt on Freedom and Responsibility

2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (142) ◽  
pp. 35-56
Author(s):  
Leonardo de Mello Ribeiro
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
The Third ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Third Person Perspective ◽  
The Third Person ◽  
Freedom And Responsibility

According to Harry Frankfurt’s account of moral responsibility, an agentis morally responsible only if her reflected choices and actions are not constrained by an irresistible force —either from the first- or the third-person perspective. I shall argue here that this claim is problematic. Given some of the background assumptions of Frankfurt’s discussion, there seem to be cases according to which one may be deemed responsible, although one’s reflected choices and actions are constrained by an irresistible force. The conclusion is that Frankfurt should have acknowledged that freedom from an irresistible force is not a necessary condition for responsibility.

scholarly journals Cytoarchitecture: Digital Dismembering and Remembering in Cyberspace

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. LW&D285-LW&D312
Author(s):  
Emma Newport
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Interdisciplinary Framework ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Person Account ◽  
Digital Footprints

Between 2012 and 2017, a contributor to Mumsnet, a popular parenting forum online, began recording a third-person account under the pseudonym IamtheZombie, covering first her divorce and then her experience of cancer. In January 2017, IamtheZombie died. Preserved by MumsnetHQ, the threads form a tissue of posts: a text-culture that explores para-sociality between the living and the dead. Building on existing scholarship on digital life writing, on the afterlives of digital footprints and on recent work in the fields of memory studies, computing and neurobiology, this essay offers a new interdisciplinary framework for describing relationality in life writing on illness, dying and death: cytoarchitecture.

Beginnings of an Account

2019 ◽  
pp. 17-48
Author(s):  
John Schwenkler
Keyword(s):  
Intentional Action ◽  
Donald Davidson ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Action Explanation ◽  
Mental Causality

This chapter discusses the argument of Sections 5-18 of G.E.M. Anscombe’s Intention. It begins by considering Anscombe’s reasons for defining the concept of intentional action according to “a certain sense of the question ‘Why?’”. Following this, the chapter considers Anscombe’s discussion of several ways that this question can be refused application, each of which leads her to introduce a necessary condition of intentional action. Important concepts that are discussed in this chapter include those of knowledge without observation, mental causality, motive, and the relation between causes and reasons for acting. Anscombe’s account of these matters is contrasted in several places with that of Gilbert Ryle, and it is argued, contrary to Donald Davidson, that Anscombe was not in fact an “anti-causalist” about action explanation. The chapter also considers the possibility of doing something intentionally but “for no reason”, or for reasons that one cannot easily identify or express.

Respect for Human Beings with Intellectual Disabilities

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Sensen
Keyword(s):  
Central Element ◽  
Respect For Persons ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Intellectually Disabled ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Human Adults ◽  
Normal Human ◽  
Objective Value ◽  
Person Account

Respect for persons is a central element of our ordinary moral views. However, there is a growing demand to include not just normal human adults, but also animals, the environment, and other traditions, etc., and to uphold a unified account of respect that seamlessly includes all of these beings. This chapter argues that this demand is best captured not by a third-person account that grounds the requirement to respect others in an objective value the other possesses, nor in a second-person account, but if one holds that there are internal, first-person reasons to adopt an attitude of respect. This chapter further argues that such reasons can be supported by every major normative outlook, such as Virtue Ethics, Consequentialism, and Deontology. The chapter considers which understanding of respect best fits our intuitions, and it then applies this view to the question of respect for intellectually disabled human beings.

Body and Mind

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ursula Renz
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Body Problem ◽  
Identity Theory ◽  
Abstract Model ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Third Person ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Mental Events ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Contemporary Approach

This chapter discusses the way in which Spinoza’s so-called identity theory addresses the mind–body problem and critically assesses several interpretations of his approach in contemporary philosophy of mind. The chapter takes Charles Jarrett’s and Michael Della Rocca’s interpretation of the attributes as opaque contexts as its point of departure. It argues that, rather than relating mental and bodily items to each other, Spinoza’s identity theory establishes an abstract model that allows for interpreting mental events as irreducible, yet completely intelligible, entities. This, it is further argued, distinguishes Spinoza’s position from the contemporary approach that comes closest to it: Donald Davidson’s anomalous monism. In contrast to Davidson—who, by rejecting the possibility of nomological reduction, relinquishes the expectation of granting third-person explainability to the mental—Spinoza assumes that, on the basis of his rationalism, mental events are not only no less real but also no less explainable than physical events.

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