Can Conscious Agency Be Saved?

This paper is concerned with the role of conscious agency in human action. On a folk-psychological view of the structure of agency, intentions, conceived as conscious mental states, are the causes of actions. In the last decades, the development of new psychological and neuroscientific methods has m...

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Publicado en:Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy Vol. 33; no. 1; pp. 33 - 46
Autor principal: Pacherie, Elisabeth
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Springer Nature Apr2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        10.1007/s11245-013-9187-6
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        atl: Can Conscious Agency Be Saved?
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        au: Pacherie, Elisabeth
        affil: Institut Jean Nicod, Institut d'Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS), EHESS, CNRS, 29 rue d'Ulm 75005 Paris France
      su:
        Ethnopsychology
        Behavioral ethics
        Consciousness
        Neurosciences
        Skepticism
      sug:
        subj:
          Ethnopsychology
          Behavioral ethics
          Consciousness
          Neurosciences
          Skepticism
      keyword:
        Action control
        Action initiation
        Action planning
        Conscious agency
        Intentions
        Libet
      ab: This paper is concerned with the role of conscious agency in human action. On a folk-psychological view of the structure of agency, intentions, conceived as conscious mental states, are the causes of actions. In the last decades, the development of new psychological and neuroscientific methods has made conscious agency an object of empirical investigation and yielded results that challenge the received wisdom. Most famously, the results of Libet's studies on the 'readiness potential' have been interpreted by many as evidence in favor of a skeptical attitude towards conscious agency. It is questionable, however, whether action initiation should be regarded as the touchstone of conscious agency. I shall argue that the traditional folk-psychological view, but also some of the objections leveled against it, rest in part on an over-simplified conception of the structure of agency, that neglects both the role of control processes after action initiation and the role of planning processes before action initiation. Taking these processes into account can lead to a reassessment of the relation between intentions and action and of the role of conscious agency in action production.
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    language: English
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