This series will include monographs and collections of studies devoted to the investigation and exploration of knowledge, information, and data-processing systems of all kinds, no matter whether human, (other) animal, or machine. Its scope is intended to span the full range of interests from classical problems in the philosophy of mind and philosophical psychology through issues in cognitive psychology and sociobiology (concerning the mental capabilities of other species) to ideas related to artificial intelligence and to computer science. While primary emphasis will be placed upon theoretical, conceptual, and epistemological aspects of these problems and domains, empirical, experimental, and methodological studies will also appear from time to time. Sam Coval and Peter Campbell provide a painstaking and distinctive analysis of the nature of action and agency. They introduce a conception of acts which encompasses the purposes that motivate them, the beliefs on the basis of which they are undertaken, and the effects that they bring about. They compare and contrast their account with ones advanced by Davidson, Brand, Searle, Danto, and other, while elaborating its consequences for understanding the nature of alibis, mistakes, accidents, inadvertence, and the like. The valuable diagrams and the discussion of the software program they have developed, which implements their theory, amply displays the potential of combining philosophy and AI with law and other disciplines focused upon agency. J.H.F.

Klappentext

When agency or intentional causation has occurred the theory presented here identifies an object ascribable to the agent -- his action -- which, through its properties, reveals its intentional cause. Such a unified view of agency and action leads to unitary views of intention and the intentional and of all explanatory objects ascribable to agents. While at odds in these matters with the prevailing theories of action, the semantics of this explanatory theory is shown to better satisfy widely accepted criteria for a viable theory of action. The revelatory character of action and its essential reference to agency shows that action theory needs agency theory. To this end, a logic of practical rational agency is developed which is intended to be neutral between competing theories of mind. A sketch of this model of agency and action, analyzes cases of agency in natural discourse. PRAGMA and its manual are available separately. This work is of interest to theorists concerned with the fundamental practical rational structure of persons, their actions and the discourse appropriate to them: to philosophers and to political, legal, AI and economic theorists.

Inhalt

1. Action as Explanation.- 1. Common Ground and Broad Theories.- 2. Conditions on A Theory of Action.- 3. Grading the Theories.- 4. Is The Intentional Intrinsic or Extrinsic to Action?.- 5. The Intentional.- 2. AGENCY: ITS TERMS AND RELATIONS.- 1. The Need For Agency Theory.- 2. The Presuppositional Terms.- 2.3 Distinctions Among the Attitudes.- 3. The States of Practical Rational Agency and their Functions.- 4. Concatenation of Content and the Function Of Belief.- 5. Distinctions between the Practical States in the Process.- 3. The Rational Processes Of Agency.- 1. Pre-Practical Reasoning: From Proto-Desire To Desire-To.- 2. Practical Reasoning: From Desire To Efficacious Intention.- 3. The Practical Syllogism: Desire.- 4. The Practical Syllogism: Intention.- 5. Intending.- 6. Theoretical Smoothness.- 7. Model 11.- 8. Autonomy.- 4. The Semantics Of Action.- 1. Action: The Explanatory Object.- 2. Intentional Action.- 3. Unintentionality.- 4. The Extra-Intentional.- 5. Responsibility.- 5. A Design Document for Pragma.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Action.- 3. Mistake.- 4. Accident.- 5. Inadvertence.- Appendix 1. Notation.- Appendix 2..- 1. Objects in the Logical Space Of Action.- 2. Agency Stream Profiles and their Corresponding Explanatory Obects.- Notes.