edited by Jesús Aguilar, Andrei Buckareff, and Keith Frankish
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Series: New Waves in Philosophy
Format: Hardback, paperback, 288 pages.
Publication date: 29 Oct 2010
Publishers’ book webpage
Description
This volume contains a set of state-of-the-art essays by young philosophers on various topics in the philosophy of action. Some of the essays are about the metaphysics of action and agency; some consider the nature of autonomy and free agency; some explore conceptual and normative issues, and some draw on data from psychology and psycho-pathology. But what all of them have in common is that they address some problem related to our existence as human agents. The range of topics covered in this collection is broad. This is intentional. Rather than focusing on one narrow topic, this volume brings together papers that, taken together, introduce readers to some key debates in contemporary philosophy of action. Readers new to the field should come away from the volume with a good sense of current thinking about human action and agency. For their part, established researchers in the field will find the essays to be original contributions that substantially advance many debates about action and agency.
Contents
Series Editors’ Preface
Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
PART I: FOUNDATIONS OF ACTION AND AGENCY
Agency, Ownership, and the Standard Theory; M.E.Schlosser
Failing to do the Impossible; C.Sartorio
Experimental Philosophy of Action; T.Nadelhoffer
PART II: AUTONOMY
Identification, Psychology, and Habits; B.Pollard
Mass Perverse Identification: An Argument for a Modest Concept of Autonomy; Y.Shemmer
Cartesian Reflections on the Autonomy of the Mental; M.Soteriou
PART III: FREE AGENCY
The Revisionist Turn: A Brief History of Recent Work on Free Will; M.Vargas
Luck and Free Will; N.Levy
Experimental Philosophy on Free Will: An Error Theory for Incompatibilist Intuitions; E.Nahmias& D.Murray
PART IV: ACTION AND AGENCY IN CONTEXT
Agentive Experiences as Pushmi-Pullyu Representations; T.Bayne
Double Bookkeeping in Delusions: Explaining the Gap Between Saying and Doing; L.Bortolotti
The Limits of Rationality in Collective Action Explanations; S.R.Chant
Index
Praise for New Waves in Philosophy of Action
“New Waves in Philosophy of Action is an excellent collection of the most recent and innovative work in the field of philosophy of action, which includes the topics of free will and moral responsibility. The editors have brought together several rising stars , and they have taken care to cover the most intriguing controversies currently unfolding. This would make a wonderful book for a graduate class. It will certainly become required reading for scholars working in this field.”
— Michael McKenna, University of Arizona
“This is an excellent collection of papers on action theory. I especially like the fact that the essays are by young philosophers whose ideas will shape discussion for years to come.”
— Storrs McCall, McGill University
“This volume is impressive and refreshing testimony to the liveliness of a new generation of philosophers of action – both in advancing well established debates and in helpfully extending the boundaries of the subject.”
— John Bishop