Choice : the essential element in human action / Alan Donagan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Donagan, Alan, author.

Series:

Routledge library editions. Free will and determinism ; Volume 2

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Act (Philosophy).

Choice (Psychology).

Will.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 197 pages)

Place of Publication:

London : Taylor and Francis, 2017.

Summary:

"This book, first published in 1987, investigates what distinguishes the part of human behaviour that is action (praxis) from the part that is not. The distinction was clearly drawn by Socrates, and developed by Aristotle and the medievals, but key elements of their work became obscured in modern philosophy, and were not fully recovered when, under Wittgenstein';s influence, the theory of action was revived in analytical philosophy. This study aims to recover those elements, and to analyse them in terms of a defensible semantics on Fregean lines. Among its conclusions: that actions are bodily or mental events that are causally explained by their doers'; propositional attitudes, especially by their choices or fully specific intentions; that choice cannot be reduced to desire and belief, and hence that the traditional concept of will as intellectual appetite must be revived."--Provided by publisher.

Contents:

chapter 1 Rational Animals and their Actions

chapter 2 Actions as Individual Events

chapter 3 Orexis and Doxa

chapter 4 Propositional Attitudes: Frege’s Semantics Revised

chapter 5 Choosing and Doing

chapter 6 Intending

chapter 7 Rationalizing and Explaining

chapter 8 Will and Intellect

chapter 9 Agency

chapter 10 Freedom of Choice.

Notes:

First published in 1987 by Routledge and Kegan Paul Limited.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 189-194) and index.

ISBN:

1-138-70414-8

1-351-78627-X

1-315-20285-9

9781315202853

OCLC:

992515534