Intention

L'autodifesa In Tommaso D'Aquino

by Mario Ricciardi

Rational Constraints and the Simple View

by Ezio Di Nucci

Analysis 2010, 70 (3): 481-86

According to the Simple View of intentional action, I have intentionally switched on the light only if I intended to... more According to the Simple View of intentional action, I have intentionally switched on the light only if I intended to switch on the light. The idea that intending to ’ is necessary for intentionally ’-ing has been challenged by Bratman (1984, 1987) with a counter-example in which a videogame player is trying to hit either of two targets while knowing that she cannot
hit both targets. When a target is hit, the game finishes. And if both targets are about to be hit simultaneously, the game shuts down. The player knows that she cannot hit both targets, but still she concludes that, given her skills, the best strategy is to have a go at each target at the same time. Suppose she
hits target 1. It seems obvious that she has hit target 1 intentionally. But, Bratman argues, she could not have intended to hit target 1. Since the scenario is perfectly symmetrical, had the player intended to hit target 1, she would have also had to intend to hit target 2. But the player knows that she cannot hit both targets.

Simply, false

by Ezio Di Nucci

Analysis 2009, 69 (1): 69-78

According to the Simple View (SV) of intentional action famously refuted by Bratman (1984 & 1987), ’-ing is... more According to the Simple View (SV) of intentional action famously refuted by Bratman (1984 & 1987), ’-ing is intentional only if the agent intended to ’. In this paper I show that none of five different objections to Bratman’s counter-example – McCann’s (1991), Garcia’s (1990), Sverdlik’s (1996),
Stout’s (2005), and Adams’s (1986) – works. Therefore Bratman’s contention that SV is false still stands...

Objects of Intention: A Hylomorphic Critique of the 'New Natural Law Theory'

by Matthew O'Brien

Co-authored with Robert C. Koons, forthcoming in the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly (Fall 2012) Vol. 86, Issue 4.

The “New Natural Law” Theory (NNL) of Germain Grisez, John Finnis, Joseph Boyle, and their collaborators offers a... more The “New Natural Law” Theory (NNL) of Germain Grisez, John Finnis, Joseph Boyle, and their collaborators offers a distinctive account of intentional action, which underlies a moral theory that aims to justify many aspects of traditional morality and Catholic doctrine.

In fact, we show that the NNL is committed to premises that entail the permissibility of many actions that are irreconcilable with traditional morality and Catholic doctrine, such as elective abortions. These consequences follow principally from two aspects of the NNL. The first aspect is its distinctive version of the planning theory of intention, in which adopting the 'first-person perspective' of an agent is a sufficient, and not merely necessary, condition for determining the nature of his intentional action; this planning theory rests upon an implicitly Cartesian conception of human behavior, in which behavior chosen by an agent has no intrinsic “intentionalness” apart from what he confers upon it as part of his plan. The second aspect is the NNL's distinctive account of basic human goods' incommensurability, according to which there is no common factor shared by basic human goods that allows them to be comparatively ranked in any way that directs practical deliberation.

The entailments of these two aspects of the NNL, we argue, amount to a reductio ad absurdum. Pace the proponents of the NNL account, we sketch an alternative hylomorphic conception of intentional action that avoids untoward moral implications by grounding human agency in the exercise of basic powers that are either (a) essential constituents of human nature or (b) acquired through participation in social practices. This conception of intentional action provides a stronger foundation for natural law theory.

Mirror Neurons and Social Cognition

by Shannon Spaulding

forthcoming in Mind & Language

Mirror neurons are widely regarded as an important key to social cognition. Despite such wide agreement, there is very... more Mirror neurons are widely regarded as an important key to social cognition. Despite such wide agreement, there is very little consensus on how or why they are important. The goal of this paper is to clearly explicate the exact role mirror neurons play in social cognition. I aim to answer two questions about the relationship between mirroring and social cognition: What kind of social understanding is involved with mirroring? How is mirroring related to that understanding? I argue that philosophical and empirical considerations lead us to accord a fairly minimal role for mirror neurons in social cognition.

Perceiving intentions

by Elisabeth Pacherie

Pacherie, E. 2005. Perceiving intentions. In A Explicação da Interpretação Humana, João Sàágua (ed.), Lisbon: Edições Colibri, pp. 401-414.

Towards a dynamic theory of intentions

by Elisabeth Pacherie

Pacherie, E. (2006). Towards a dynamic theory of intentions. In S. Pockett, W.P. Banks & S. Gallagher (eds) Does Consciousness Cause Behavior? An Investigation of the Nature of Volition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 145-167.

Mentalizing under influence: abnormal dependence on prior expectations in patients with schizophrenia

by Elisabeth Pacherie

Chambon, V., Pacherie, E., Barbalat, G., Jacquet, P., Franck, N & Farrer, C. (2011) Mentalizing under influence: abnormal dependence on prior expectations in patients with schizophrenia. Brain, 134, 12: 3725-3738.

An impaired ability to appreciate other people’s mental states is a well-established and stable cognitive deficit in... more An impaired ability to appreciate other people’s mental states is a well-established and stable cognitive deficit in schizophrenia, which might explain some aspects of patients’ social dysfunction. Yet, despite a wealth of literature on this topic, the basic mechanisms underlying these impairments are still poorly understood, and their links with the clinical dimensions of schizo- phrenia remain unclear. The present study aimed to investigate the extent to which patients’ impaired ability to appreciate other people’s intentions (known as mentalizing) may be accounted for by abnormal interaction between the two types of information that contribute to this ability: (i) the sensory evidence conveyed by movement kinematics; and (ii) the observer’s prior expect- ations. We hypothesized that this is not a generalized impairment, but one confined to certain types of intentions. To test this assumption, we designed four tasks in which participants were required to infer either: (i) basic intentions (i.e. the simple goal of a motor act); (ii) superordinate intentions (i.e. the general goal of a sequence of motor acts); (iii) social basic; or (iv) social superordinate intentions (i.e. simple or general goals achieved within the context of a reciprocal interaction). In each of these tasks, both prior expectations and sensory information were manipulated. We found that patients correctly inferred non-social, basic intentions, but experienced difficulties when inferring non-social superordinate intentions and both basic and superordin- ate social intentions. These poor performances were associated with two abnormal patterns of interaction between prior expectations and sensory evidence. In the non-social superordinate condition, patients relied heavily on their prior expectations, while disregarding sensory evidence. This pattern of interaction predicted the severity of ‘positive’ symptoms. Social conditions prompted exactly the opposite pattern of interaction: patients exhibited weaker dependence on prior expectations while relying strongly on sensory evidence, and this predicted the severity of ‘negative’ symptoms. We suggest both these patterns can be accounted for by a disturbance in the Bayesian inferential mechanism that integrates sensory evidence (conveyed by movement kinematics) into prior beliefs (about others’ mental states and attitudes) to produce accurate inferences about other people’s intentions.

Intentions as complex entities

by Marco Mazzone

M. Mazzone 2011. “Intentions as complex entities”, Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 2, 767-783.

In the philosophic and cognitive literature, the word 'intention' has been used with a variety of meanings which... more In the philosophic and cognitive literature, the word 'intention' has been used with a variety of meanings which occasionally have been explicitly distinguished. I claim that an important cause of this polysemy is the fact that intentions are complex entities, endowed with an internal structure, and that sometimes different theories in the field are erroneously presented as if they were in conflict with each other, while they in fact just focus on different aspects of the phenomenon. The debate between Gallese's embodied simulation theory and Csibra and Gergely's teleological stance hypothesis is discussed as a case in point, and some misunderstandings occurring in that debate are analyzed. The thesis that intentions are complex entities is argued for by shedding light on the following aspects of intentions: conscious control; perceptual (and not only motoric) representations of end-states; attributions of value to those representations; appreciation of the rational relationships between means and ends.

Distributed Intentionality. A Model of Intentional Behavior in Humans

by Marco Mazzone

M. Mazzone, E. Campisi in press. “Distributed intentionality. A model of intentional behavior in humans”, Philosophical Psychology.

Is human behavior, and more specifically linguistic behavior, intentional? Some scholars have proposed that action is... more Is human behavior, and more specifically linguistic behavior, intentional? Some scholars have proposed that action is driven in a top-down manner by one single intention–i.e., one single conscious goal. Others have argued that actions are mostly non-intentional, insofar as often the single goal driving an action is not consciously represented. We intend to claim that both alternatives are unsatisfactory; more specifically, we claim that actions are intentional, but intentionality is distributed across complex goal-directed representations of action, rather than concentrated in single intentions driving action in a top-down manner. These complex representations encompass a multiplicity of goals, together with other components which are not goals themselves, and are the result of a largely automatic dynamic of activation; such an automatic processing, however, does not preclude the involvement of conscious attention, shifting from one component to the other of the overall goal-directed representation.

Weakness of will as intention-violation

by Dylan Dodd

European Journal of Philosophy
17/1:45-59 [2009]
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0378.2007.00283.x

I propose a way of improving Richard Holton's analysis of weakness of will. I also propose a way of improving Michael... more I propose a way of improving Richard Holton's analysis of weakness of will. I also propose a way of improving Michael Bratman's analysis of intentions.

What Good is a Will?

by J. David Velleman

Published in Anton Leist (ed.), Action in Context (2007)

On the functional role of intention. On the functional role of intention.

Commitments: from individual intentions to groups and organizations

by Cristiano Castelfranchi

preliminary version; published in ICMAS'95

The aim of this work is to introduce some notions of Commitment as a descriptive ontology crucial for the... more The aim of this work is to introduce some notions of Commitment as a descriptive ontology crucial for the understanding of groups' and organizations' functioning, and of the relations between individual agents and collective activity. Some of the basic ingredients of such notions are identified and some steps are made towards their definition. In particular, it is claimed that a notion of Commitment is needed as a mediation between the individual and the collective one. Before constructing a notion of "Collective or Group Commitment" a notion of "Social Commitment" is to be defined. "Social commitment" is not an individual Commitment shared by many agents; it is the Commitment of one agent to another. The normative contents (entitlements / obligations) of this social relation are stressed and its connections with individual intentions and collective activity. On that basis, a notion of Organizational Commitment is proposed, that could account for the structure of stable Organizations. Commitment is a crucial notion both to analyse the structure of Organizations and to support cooperative work, but a deeper analysis is needed, connecting agent's mental states with social relations and structure.

Author and his meaning: Hirsch's critique of Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics

by Saša Radojčić

Limits of the Conscious Control of Action

by Michael Schmitz

PhD Dissertation: Comment faire les choses. Du pluralisme des descriptions de l'action

by Julien Maréchal

When one thinks about describing action, it is usually agreed that there are many ways to describe what was done on a... more When one thinks about describing action, it is usually agreed that there are many ways to describe what was done on a given occasion. When it is rightly acknowledged, I call this fact “pluralism”. But there are many ways to misconceive this fact. I focused on a particularly widespread misconception: doing an action is just, only, or ultimately moving our body. A critique of the idea is obviously that moving our body is but one of several aspects that might be required to have done a given thing. J. L. AUSTIN had various ideas compatible with this critique and so with pluralism. I identified and developed a few of these ideas thanks to the notion of “model” (its distinguishing features) found in AUSTIN. These ideas run counter to some widely used tools for describing action, such as “knowing under a description”, the “accordion effect”, and the “swallowing effect”. If these descriptive tools appear at first to be compatible with pluralism, the study of the models I found in AUSTIN shows they are not.



L’idée à critiquer affirme que toute action ne consiste qu’en des mouvements physiques : une action est un mouvement du corps. La critique est que si toute action inclut des mouvements physiques, elle ne consiste pas seulement, juste, exclusivement en des mouvements physiques. Ainsi, pour toute action, il y a (probablement) un mouvement du corps, mais ce n’est (souvent) pas là la seule composante de l’action. J. L. AUSTIN a développé des techniques de description de l’action en continuité avec cette critique. C’est pourquoi, à partir de la notion de « modèle » telle qu’elle apparaît chez Austin, nous avons répertorié et développé plusieurs de ces techniques de description. Il devient alors clair qu’elles s’opposent à un usage abusif de dispositifs analytiques très répandus, comme « savoir sous une description », « l’effet accordéon » ou encore « l’avalement ». Si ces dispositifs semblent reposer sur le même fait qu’est la multiplicité des manières de décrire l’action, seuls les modèles que nous avons développés sont compatibles avec un véritable pluralisme des descriptions de l’action.

Informations complémentaires

Goal desires moderate intention-behaviour relations.

by Andrew Prestwich

British Journal of Social Psychology, 47, 49-71.

Previous research has largely ignored the potential impact of goal-related constructs on behaviour. Three studies... more Previous research has largely ignored the potential impact of goal-related constructs on behaviour. Three studies addressed this issue by examining the direct and moderated effects of goal desires on behaviour. All of the studies required participants to complete baseline measures and then a follow-up indicator of behaviour. In the first study (N=119) that focused on fruit intake, and studies 2 (N=123) and 3 (N=96) concerned with drinking alcohol, goal desires interacted with behavioural intentions to affect behaviour. Specifically, behavioural intentions were more reliably related to behaviour when goal desires were strong. The results of the third study suggested that in order to obtain such interactive effects, the strength of the overarching goal must remain stable. The findings reveal that goals and behavioural intentions can operate simultaneously and jointly influence action, a view that contradicts postulations that the effects of goals are fully mediated by more proximal behavioural determinants.

The pervasive impact of moral judgment

by Dean Pettit

Co-authored with Joshua Knobe.

A series of recent studies have shown that people's moral judgments can affect their intuitions as to whether or not a... more A series of recent studies have shown that people's moral judgments can affect their intuitions as to whether or not a behavior was performed intentionally. Prior attempts to explain this effect can be divided into two broad families. Some researchers suggest that the effect is due to some peculiar feature of the concept of intentional action in particular, while others suggest that the effect is a reflection of a more general tendency whereby moral judgments exert a pervasive influence on folk psychology. The present paper argues in favor of the latter hypothesis by showing that the very same effect that has been observed for intentionally also arises for deciding, in favor of, opposed to, and advocating.

Unmotivated Intentional Action

by Danny Frederick

Philosophical Frontiers, 5/1 (2010), 21-30.

In opposition to the tenet of contemporary action theory that an intentional action must be done for a reason, I argue... more In opposition to the tenet of contemporary action theory that an intentional action must be done for a reason, I argue that some intentional actions are unmotivated. I provide examples of arbitrary and habitual actions that are done for no reason at all. I consider and rebut an objection to the examples of unmotivated habitual action. I explain how my contention differs from recent challenges to the tenet by Hursthouse, Stocker and Pollard.

An Empirical Study of Text Messaging Behavioral Intention and Usage

by Patricia Sendall