Flexible occurrent control

Abstract

There has recently been much interest in the role of attention in controlling action. The role has been mischaracterized as an element in necessary and sufficient conditions on agential control. In this paper I attempt a new characterization of the role. I argue that we need to understand attentional control in order to fully understand agential control. To fully understand agential control we must understand paradigm exercises of agential control. Three important accounts of agential controlintentional, reflective, and goal-represented control -do not fully explain such exercises. I argue that understanding them requires understanding how deployments of visual attention implement flexible occurrent control, or a capacity to flexibly adjust the degree of control that individuals exercise over their actions. While such deployments of attention are neither necessary nor sufficient for exercising agential control, they constitute an attentional skill for controlling action, understanding which is central to fully understanding agential control. We can appreciate its centrality if we appreciate that this attentional skill for controlling action is plausibly crucial to acting non-negligently.Words: 6,604 Flexible Occurrent Control A pianist controls her play by focusing on the structure of the passage that she is playing. A walker controls his journey home by scanning the way for obstacles. A chef controls her picking up a knife by performing quick saccades between the knife and her hand. All three individuals act intentionally. They exercise more control over their actions than if they had not attended or attended to a lesser agree. How much control they exercise over their actions is at their discretion. The pianist can shift her attention to the movements of her hands. The walker can focus on a phone conversation instead of his way ahead. The chef may move her attention to the knife, attempting to discern its exact position. In these paradigm instances of agential control, individuals flexibly control their actions by deploying attention. In this paper I argue that:Flexible Occurrent Control: Many individuals can flexibly adjust the degree of control that they exercise over their action, during its execution, and such adjustments are often at the individuals' discretion. 1 Discussions of agential control in action theory focus almost exclusively on providing necessary and sufficient conditions for an event's being an act. This focus has, for 1 If it is true that individuals cannot act unless they control their actions, then there is a sense in which any action involves an exercise of occurrent control. When I refer to flexible occurrent control I intend the narrower phenomenon described in the main text. The control is occurrent because it is not merely dispositional. It is flexible insofar as individuals can adjust its degree during the execution of the action. 3 See section 3 below.4In what follows I will indicate representational contents -such as concepts -by underlining them. 5 I will explain each point at gre...

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