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The Structure of Orthonomy*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2010

Michael Smith
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Extract

According to the standard story of action, a story that can be traced back at least to David Hume (1740), actions are those bodily movements that are caused and rationalized by a pair of mental states: a desire for some end, where ends can be thought of as ways the world could be, and a belief that something the agent can just do, namely, move her body in the way to be explained, has some suitable chance of making the world the relevant way. Bodily movements that occur otherwise aren't actions, they are mere happenings (Davidson 1963, Davidson 1971).

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 55 , September 2004 , pp. 165 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2004

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