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Author | : F. Vollmer |
Publisher | : Springer Science & Business Media |
Total Pages | : 188 |
Release | : 2013-03-14 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 940159225X |
Download Agent Causality Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
We act for reasons. But, it is sometimes claimed, the mental states and events that make up reasons, are not sufficient conditions of actions. Reasons never make actions happen. We- as agents (persons, selves, subjects) - make our actions happen. Actions are done by us, not elicited by reasons. The present essay is an attempt to understand this concept of agent causality. Who -~ or what - is an agent ? And how - in virtue of what - does an agent do things, or refrain from doing them? The first chapter deals with problems in the theory of action that seem to require the assumption that actions are controlled by agents. Chapters two and three then review and discuss theories of agent cau sality. Chapters four and five make up the central parts of the essay in which my own solution is put forth, and chapter six presents some data that seem to support this view. Chapter seven discusses how the theory can be reconciled with neuro-physiological facts. And in the last two chapters the theory is confronted with conflicting viewpoints and phe nomena. Daniel Robinson and Richard Swinburne took time to read parts of the manuscript in draft form. Though they disagree with my main viewpoints on the nature of the self, their conunents were very helpful. I hereby thank them both.
Author | : J. Swindal |
Publisher | : Springer |
Total Pages | : 216 |
Release | : 2011-11-08 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 0230355463 |
Download Action and Existence Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Since the pioneering work of Donald Davidson on action, many philosophers have taken critical stances on his causal account. This book criticizes Davidson's event-causal view of action, and offers instead an agent causal view both to describe what an action is and to set a framework for how actions are explained.
Author | : Toby Handfield |
Publisher | : OUP Oxford |
Total Pages | : 355 |
Release | : 2009-02-05 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 0191565415 |
Download Dispositions and Causes Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
In recent decades, the analysis of causal relations has become a topic of central importance in analytic philosophy. More recently, dispositional properties have also become objects of intense study. Both of these phenomena appear to be intimately related to counterfactual conditionals and other modal phenomena such as objective chance, but little work has been done to directly relate them. Dispositions and Causes contains ten essays by scholars working in both metaphysics and in philosophy of science, examining the relation between dispositional and causal concepts. Particular issues discussed include the possibility of reducing dispositions to causes, and vice versa; the possibility of a nominalist theory of causal powers; the attempt to reduce all metaphysical necessity to dispositional properties; the relationship between dispositions, causes, and laws of nature; the role of causal capacities in explaining the success of scientific inquiry; the grounding of dispositions and causes in objective chances; and the type of causal power required for free agency. The introductory chapter contains a detailed overview of recent work in the area, providing a helpful entry to the literature for non-specialists.
Author | : John Christopher Bishop |
Publisher | : Cambridge University Press |
Total Pages | : 228 |
Release | : 1989 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 9780521374309 |
Download Natural Agency Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
From a moral point of view we think of ourselves as capable of responsible actions. From a scientific point of view we think of ourselves as animals whose behavior, however highly evolved, conforms to natural scientific laws. Natural Agency argues that these different perspectives can be reconciled, despite the skepticism of many philosophers who have argued that "free will" is impossible under "scientific determinism." This skepticism is best overcome according to the author, by defending a causal theory of action, that is by establishing that actions are constituted by behavioral events with the appropriate kind of mental causal history. He sets out a rich and subtle argument for such a theory and defends it against its critics. Thus the book demonstrates the importance of philosophical work in action theory for the central metaphysical task of understanding our place in nature.
Author | : Timothy O'Connor |
Publisher | : Oxford University Press |
Total Pages | : 160 |
Release | : 2002-11-14 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 0190288434 |
Download Persons and Causes Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
This provocative book refurbishes the traditional account of freedom of will as reasons-guided "agent" causation, situating its account within a general metaphysics. O'Connor's discussion of the general concept of causation and of ontological reductionism v. emergence will specially interest metaphysicians and philosophers of mind.
Author | : W. Matthews Grant |
Publisher | : Bloomsbury Publishing |
Total Pages | : 256 |
Release | : 2019-05-16 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 1350082910 |
Download Free Will and God's Universal Causality Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
The traditional doctrine of God's universal causality holds that God directly causes all entities distinct from himself, including all creaturely actions. But can our actions be free in the strong, libertarian sense if they are directly caused by God? W. Matthews Grant argues that free creaturely acts have dual sources, God and the free creaturely agent, and are ultimately up to both in a way that leaves all the standard conditions for libertarian freedom satisfied. Offering a comprehensive alternative to existing approaches for combining theism and libertarian freedom, he proposes new solutions for reconciling libertarian freedom with robust accounts of God's providence, grace, and predestination. He also addresses the problem of moral evil without the commonly employed Free Will Defense. Written for analytic philosophers and theologians, Grant's approach can be characterized as “neo-scholastic” as well as “analytic,” since many of the positions defended are inspired by, consonant with, and develop resources drawn from the scholastic tradition, especially Aquinas.
Author | : Corey Barnes |
Publisher | : Taylor & Francis |
Total Pages | : 269 |
Release | : 2024-08-13 |
Genre | : Religion |
ISBN | : 1040113176 |
Download Natural Final Causality and Scholastic Thought Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
This book examines scholastic conceptions of final causality through the methods and concerns of historical theology. It argues the history of final causality is most profitably understood according to the interplay of regularity, order, and intentionality as interpretive categories. Within this analytic framework, the author explores the history and theological implications of final causality from Aristotle to Nicole Oresme, utilizing shifts in the dominant interpretive category to clarify how final causality could change from one of four co-equal explanatory strategies in Aristotle to the cause of causes in Avicenna to a merely metaphorical cause in Walter Chatton. Theological debates – ranging from questions of creation, the relationship of primary and secondary causality and of the ultimate good to secondary goods, the autonomy or instrumentality of nature, and the compatibility of chance with providence – motivated many of these changes. The chapters examine final causality in Aristotle and the commentorial tradition from late antiquity to medieval Arabic sources and then consider in detail various scholastic understandings and uses of final causality. The book will be of particular interest to scholars of historical theology, systematic theology, scholastic thought, and medieval philosophy.
Author | : Miroslaw Szatkowski |
Publisher | : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG |
Total Pages | : 269 |
Release | : 2014-12-11 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 1614519498 |
Download Substantiality and Causality Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
The content of the volume is divided as follows: after presenting two rival approaches to substantiality and causality: a traditional (ontological) view vs. a transcendental one (Rosiak) there follow two sections: the first presents studies of substance as showing some causal aspects (Buchheim, Keinänen, Kovac, Piwowarczyk), whereas the other contains investigations of causality showing in a way its reference to the category of substance (Kobiela, Meixner, Mitscherling, Wroński). The last, short section contains two studies of extension (Leszczyński and Skowron) which can be regarded as a conceptual background of both substantiality and causality. The book gives a very colourful picture of the discussions connected with substantiality and causality which may be of potential interest for the readers.
Author | : Randolph Clarke |
Publisher | : Oxford University Press, USA |
Total Pages | : 276 |
Release | : 2006-02-23 |
Genre | : Free will and determinism |
ISBN | : 9780195306422 |
Download Libertarian Accounts of Free Will Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
This text examines free will in the context of determinism on the one hand, and the notion that this choice may in fact be random and arbitrary on the other.
Author | : Vincent Vaccaro |
Publisher | : |
Total Pages | : 312 |
Release | : 1973 |
Genre | : Agent (Philosophy) |
ISBN | : |
Download Agent Causality in the Understanding of Human Action Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle