Just doing what I do: on the awareness of fluent agency

Abstract

Hubert Dreyfus has argued that cases of absorbed bodily coping show that there is no room for self-awareness in flow experiences of experts. In this paper, I argue against Dreyfus' maxim of vanishing self-awareness by suggesting that awareness of agency is present in expert bodily action. First, I discuss the phenomenon of absorbed bodily coping by discussing flow experiences involved in expert bodily action: merging into the flow; immersion in the flow; emergence out of flow. I argue against the claim that flow experience does not involve an awareness of agency for each of these features, while conceding that fluent agency does not involve self-awareness in the thetic sense. I challenge the assumption that the awareness of fluent agency must be understood in terms of a thetic awareness of agency. Instead, I develop an Anscombean account of the awareness of fluent agency in terms of the phenomenal character of knowing one's aims. I respond to the challenge that if an Anscombean account of the awareness of agency is to succeed, then agents must be able to answer Anscombean questions. I consider the objection that awareness of agency is not a form of self-awareness by outlining an account of self-awareness as self-synthesis that is distinct from self-perception and selfascription, but which makes room for self-awareness in expert bodily action.

Interactive expertise in solo and joint musical performance

“…A debated proponent of this position is Hubert Dreyfus, with his five-stage model of expertise (2014) and his articles concerning the relation between expert coping and reflection (2005; 2013). His position has been thoroughly discussed for instance by Breivik 2013, Sutton et al 2011, Fridland 2014, Dow 2017, Montero 2016, and Høffding 2019, and we will not rehearse further criticism here. A seemingly parallel line of thinking emerges from so-called "Eastern perspectives"; philosophies of martial arts systems from China and Japan, where one, while in some form of "flow" or meditative state, putatively loses self-awareness (Hutto & Ilundáin-Agurruza 2018, Ilundáin-Agurruza 2015, De Prycker 2011).…”

Not being there: An analysis of expertise‐induced amnesia

“…In contrast, on the two explanations we tender, postperformance amnesia occurs when the nature of the performers' conscious experience leaves them unable to recall what they had done; or, to put it somewhat paradoxically, on our two alternative accounts of postperformance amnesia, it is being there that precipitates not being there. 1 Dow (2017) questions the extent of these memory blanks: while a runner, he points out, might deny that she actively made choices about how, say, to pace herself, she will still remember that she was running. Similarly, our three experts may still remember that they were engaged in the activity they had been doing.…”

“…1 1 Dow (2017) questions the extent of these memory blanks: while a runner, he points out, might deny that she actively made choices about how, say, to pace herself, she will still remember that she was running. Similarly, our three experts may still remember that they were engaged in the activity they had been doing.…”

On the Awareness of Joint Agency: A Pessimistic Account of the Feelings of Acting Together

“… I have defended a telic account of the awareness of agency in the context of expert bodily action (Dow ). The account of the phenomenology of joint agency offered later in the article interprets we‐intentions through a telic account.…”