In our scientific era, there has been widespread talk about the demise of conventional notions about our agency. In this book, Jason Runyan examines our conventional thought and talk about our agency and the basis for thinking that it is inconsistent with scientific findings. Using clear language and concrete examples, he brings philosophy and science to bear on fundamental questions: What is true about us? Do we accomplish what we think we do in everyday life? And should our scientific discoveries upend the way we think about our agency? In the process, Runyan shows how analytic and empirical approaches should inform one another how, together, they enable a more precise and expansive view, save us from the pitfalls of overreaching, and yield insights to live by.
Arvustused
'A unique contribution to the literature on action and free will. Runyan deftly bridges the gap between contemporary, empirically informed discussions of neuroscience and free will, and a tradition in linguistic philosophy with roots in Wittgenstein and Vendler. Tightly focused and accessibly written, this book should be of interest to both scholars and students in the philosophy of mind and action.' Jonathan Payton, Bilkent University
Muu info
An integrative study of action, intention, purpose, and free will, and what we are discovering about our agency through science.
Introduction; Part I:
1. The irreducibility of our agency to events
and/or states;
2. The incompatibilism of accomplishing (some of) our aims;
3.
The irreducibility of libertarian agency; Part II:
4. The plausibility of
intentional agency;
5. The plausibility of irreducible libertarian agency;
6.
The plausibility of irreducible agency; Concluding postscript; Bibliography;
Index.
Jason D. Runyan is Professor of Neuropsychology at Indiana Wesleyan University. His cross-disciplinary work has led to discoveries about memory, the development of smartphone-based experience sampling for collecting psychological data in daily life, evidence of virtue expression, and contributions to philosophical psychology.
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