Mind Out of Action

Mind Out of Action challenges a central dogma ofcontemporary philosophy of action, causalism: theidea that some movement is an action in virtue of thekind of causes it has; namely, psychological statesthat rationalize it. By looking at automatic actions,Di Nucci argues against both reductive (Davidson) andnon-reductive (the Simple View and Bratman) causalaccounts of intentional action. Automatic actions areroutine performances the agent carries out withouthaving to attend to them, like changing gear orpulling a trigger. The author argues that automaticactions do not fit the causalist bill because thereis not always evidence for the attribution of therequired content-specific psychological states.After having presented and defined the concept ofAutomatic Action, and having shown how common suchconcept is in empirical psychology, Di Nucci goes onto argue against reductive and non-reductivecausalism. In the last chapter an alternative tocausalism is presented and defended, the GuidanceView, inspired by Frankfurt.Mind Out of Action will be of interest to studentsand scholars of the philosophy of mind and action, aswell as to psychologists.

Autorentext

Ezio Di Nucci (Laurea, Roma; Msc & PhD, Edinburgh) is Lecturer in Philosophy of Mind & Language at University College Dublin. He works in the philosophy of action. His publications include Content, Consciousness, and Perception (CSP, 2006) and Simply, False (Analysis, 2009). His other research interests are animal ethics and political philosophy.

Klappentext
Mind Out of Action challenges a central dogma of contemporary philosophy of action, causalism: the idea that some movement is an action in virtue of the kind of causes it has; namely, psychological states that rationalize it. By looking at automatic actions, Di Nucci argues against both reductive (Davidson) and non-reductive (the Simple View and Bratman) causal accounts of intentional action. Automatic actions are routine performances the agent carries out without having to attend to them, like changing gear or pulling a trigger. The author argues that automatic actions do not fit the causalist bill because there is not always evidence for the attribution of the required content-specific psychological states. After having presented and defined the concept of Automatic Action, and having shown how common such concept is in empirical psychology, Di Nucci goes on to argue against reductive and non-reductive causalism. In the last chapter an alternative to causalism is presented and defended, the Guidance View, inspired by Frankfurt. Mind Out of Action will be of interest to students and scholars of the philosophy of mind and action, as well as to psychologists.