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Human Action, Deliberation and Causation

  • Book
  • © 1998

Overview

Editors:
  1. Jan Bransen

    1. Department of Philosophy, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands

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  2. Stefaan E. Cuypers

    1. Department of Philosophy, Catholic University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

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    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

Part of the book series: Philosophical Studies Series (PSSP, volume 77)

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Table of contents (13 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-vi
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  2. Introduction

    1. Introduction

      • Jan Bransen, Stefaan E. Cuypers
      Pages 1-13

  3. Deliberation

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 15-15
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    2. The Possibility of Philosophy of Action

      • Michael Smith
      Pages 17-41

    3. The Real Reasons

      • Frederick Stoutland
      Pages 43-66

    4. Reasons and the First Person

      • Jaegwon Kim
      Pages 67-87

    5. Freedom in Belief and Desire

      • Philip Pettit, Michael Smith
      Pages 89-112

    6. Goodwill, Determinism and Justification

      • Maureen Sie
      Pages 113-129

    7. Making X Happen: Prolepsis and the Problem of Mental Determination

      • Jan Bransen
      Pages 131-153

  5. Back Matter

    Pages 295-301
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Keywords

About this book

There is an interesting and far-reaching disagreement between Smith and Frederick Stoutland. In his 'The Real Reasons' Stoutland argues that one of the mistakes that turned the belief-desire model of action into the 'received view' is the underlying commitment to the idea that there is an underlying unity to all action explanations. According to Stoutland the unity is no deeper than the superficial fact that actions are responses of agents to the world, and the challenge for the philosophy of action is to make sense of that fact without falling victim to the un­ fruitful assumption that reasons should be understood as the normative content of determinate representational inner states of agents. Stoutland suggests an alternative according to which reasonable agents possess the know how to respond appropriately to the normative import of the external situations they find themselves in. These situations are, Stout­ land claims, the real reasons. Stoutland raises an important issue. If beliefs and desires should be understood as reasons, as introducing normative constraints that de­ serve respect, it seems we are bound to distinguish between on the one hand the content of our beliefs and desires and on the other hand their objects. Moreover, it seems we have good reasons to believe that the content of our beliefs and desires derives its normative import qua normative import from the objects of our beliefs and desires.

Editors and Affiliations

  • Department of Philosophy, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands

    Jan Bransen

  • Department of Philosophy, Catholic University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Stefaan E. Cuypers

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Human Action, Deliberation and Causation

  • Editors: Jan Bransen, Stefaan E. Cuypers

  • Series Title: Philosophical Studies Series

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5082-8

  • Publisher: Springer Dordrecht

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

  • Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 1998

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-7923-5204-4Published: 30 September 1998

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-94-010-6134-6Published: 16 October 2012

  • eBook ISBN: 978-94-011-5082-8Published: 06 December 2012

  • Series ISSN: 0921-8599

  • Series E-ISSN: 2542-8349

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: VI, 301

  • Topics: Philosophy of Education, Metaphysics, Ontology, Philosophy of Man, Modern Philosophy

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