We examine two approaches to functions: etiological and forward-looking. In the context of functions, we raise the question, familiar to philosophers of mind, about the explanatory role of properties that are not supervenient on the mere dispositional features of a system. We first argue that the question has no easy answer in either of the two approaches. We then draw a parallel between functions and goal directedness. We conclude by proposing an answer to the question: The explanatory importance of nonsupervenient properties (like having the function of doing something, or like being goal-directed) does not lie in any special causal mechanism through which these properties bring about their effects; it lies rather in the different classification of the explananda types that these properties generate.
Attempts to answer the question of whether it is possible to understand agency as realized within a world construed ‘naturalistically’, that is, in terms of causal relations among events and states of affairs, or whether an adequate ontology requires sui generis acts that are essentially voluntary, such as volitions or agent-causation. Berent Enç defends the possibility of naturalizing agency via a causal theory of action (CTA). In doing that, he develops his key notion of basic action (Chs 2 and 3); he offers a ‘general and original’ solution to the problem of causal deviance (Ch. 4); and, he attempts to answer the objection that CTA removes the agent from the picture altogether by offering a purely causal model for the deliberative process that underlies practical reasoning (Ch. 5). Furthermore, the book discusses objections to volitional theories (Ch. 1), intentions and intentional action (Ch. 6), and the compatibility of Enç’s CTA with attractive accounts of autonomy and freedom (Ch. 7).
1. Introduction. One major concern in cognitive psychology is explaining cognitively motivated behavior. However, attempts to specify the nature of the behavior that psychology is to explain have proved to be somewhat controversial. The aim of this paper is to conduct a preliminary investigation into the kinds of behavior psychology is (or should be) concerned with.
This chapter is an essay on intentions and intentional action, which focuses in particular on the relation between the rational explanations of action that cite the agent’s intentions and the psychological state of intending. Enç first proposes a theory about the nature of intention and its content, and subsequently defends this theory by demonstrating how a number of familiar features of intentions follow from it.
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