A framework to understand human action

Abstract

ABSTRA CT: This paper consists in an analysis of two explanatory models of human behaviour which play a prominent role in the contemporary literature on human action. The first model -the causalist -aims at explaining action in terms of causes and general laws. The second model -the intentionalist -explains human action in terms of intentions and practical sy/logisfJ1. The difficulties oi both models are presented and in the last part of the , essay we propose one altemative model, based on the notion of retroduction.KEY-WORDS: Explanation; covering-Ia w mode/; human action; causalism; intentionalism; retroduction.As we ali know human behaviour can be described and classified in a several ways. We speak about' activities, actions, achievements, habitual and automated behaviour, reflexes and so on. It is plausible to think that our explanations of behaviour are strongly linked with our ways of describing behaviour. It could also be argued that one's general views concerning the nature of man and the sources of man's activity strongly affect one's way of conceptualizing and explaining behaviour.In this article we shall concentrate on behaviour as action and on some of the several ways one can explain actions. Our strategy will be threefold: in the first part we will try to sketch an approach to the explanation of action which we will call "the causal approach to the explanation of action" or "causalism". We shall. illustrate this approach by focusing on a specific explanatory model, the so-called nomologicál-deductive mode!. The version of this model we wish to study in detai! is Hempel's one. Its importance in the philosophical literature on explanation is almost self-evident and the attempt to extend this model to the explanation of items of human behaviour would certainly lead us to review a lot of questions which are embodied in the explanatory task, such as causation, dete rminism, laws, etc.In the second part of this paper we shall present another explanatory model, which we will call "the intentionalist approach to the explanation of hLiman action" or "intentionalism". A version of the intentionalist model of explanation can be found in G. H. von Wright's, Explanation and Understanding. The reason to present the intentional. ist view according to von Wr1ght's approach resides in its fruitfulness to raise a set of questions with which we are particularly in agreement here. We are referring to von Wright's criticism of the Logical Connection Argument. The Aristotelian idea of "pra,ctical syllogism", re-stated by G. Anscombe and Von Wright will also prove fruitful to the explanatory scheme to which we are going to devote the third part of this paper .