Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T18:57:53.793Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Intention and Volition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Jing Zhu
Jing Zhu*
Affiliation:
Department of Social Sciences, Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing100039, China
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The volitional theory of human action has formed a basis for a prominent account of voluntary behavior since at least Aquinas. But in the twentieth century the notions of will and volition lost much of their popularity in both philosophy and psychology. Gilbert Ryle's devastating attack on the concept of will, and especially the doctrine of volition, has had lingering effects evident in the widespread hostility and skepticism towards the will and volition. Since the 1970s, however, the volitional theory has received some renewed interest in the philosophy of action.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , June 2004 , pp. 175 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Ryle, The Concept of Mind (London: Hutchinson 1949), ch. 3.Google Scholar See also Melden, A.I. Free Action (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1961), ch. 5.Google Scholar

2 Aune, B. ‘Prichard, Action, and Volition’ Philosophical Studies 25 (1974) 97–116;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Reason and Action (Dordrecht, Holland: Reidel 1977), ch. 2; Davis, L. Theory of Action (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall 1979);Google Scholar Ginet, C. ‘Voluntary Exertion of the Body’ Theory and Decision 20 (1986) 223–45;CrossRefGoogle Scholar On Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1990); Goldman, A. ‘The Volitional Theory Revisited’ in Brand, M. and Walton, D. eds., Action Theory (Dordrecht, Holland: Reidel 1975), 67–84;Google Scholar Lowe, E.J. Subjects of Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1996), ch. 5;CrossRefGoogle Scholar An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2000), ch. 9; McCann, H. ‘Volition and Basic Action’ Philosophical Review 83 (1974) 451–73;CrossRefGoogle Scholar ‘Trying, Paralysis, and Volition’ Review of Metaphysics 28 (1975) 423-42; The Works of Agency (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press 1998); Nathan, N.M.L. Will and World: A Study in Metaphysics (Oxford: Clarendon 1992);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Odegard, D. ‘Volition and Action’ American Philosophical Quarterly 25 (1988) 141–51;Google Scholar O'Shaughnessy, B. The Will: A Dual Aspect Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1980);Google Scholar Ripley, C. ‘A Theory of Volition’ American Philosophical Quarterly 11 (1974) 141–7;Google Scholar Sellars, W. ‘Volitions Re-Affirmed’ in Brand, M. and Walton, D. eds., Action Theory (Dordrecht, Holland: Reidel 1975), 47–66.Google Scholar

3 Audi, R. ‘Volition and Agency’ in his Action, Intention, and Reason (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1993), 74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Brand, M. Intending and Acting: Toward a Naturalized Action Theory (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 1984);Google Scholar Bratman, M. Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1987);Google Scholar Faces of Intention: Selected Essays on Intention and Agency (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1999); Harman, G. ‘Practical reasoning’ Review of Metaphysics 79 (1976) 431–63;Google Scholar ‘Willing and intending’ in Grandy, R. E. and Warner, R. (eds.), Philosophical Grounds of Rationality: Intentions, Categories, Ends (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1986), 363–82;Google Scholar Change in View (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 1986), chs 8 & 9; Mele, A. Springs of Action: Understanding Intentional Behavior (New York: Oxford University Press 1992);Google Scholar Searle, J. Intentionality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1983), ch. 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Zelazo, P. Astington, J. and Olson, D. eds., Developing Theories of Intention: Social Understanding and Self-control (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates 1999);Google Scholar Malle, B.F. Moses, L.J. and Baldwin, D.A. eds., Intentions and Intentionality: Foundations of Social Cognition (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 2001).Google Scholar

6 ‘Volitions Re-affirmed’ 53.

7 Ibid., 47.

8 ‘The Intention/Volition Debate’ Canadian Journal of Philosophy 22 (1992) 323-38.

9 Ibid., 323.

10 Ibid., 337.

11 See R. Audi, ‘Volition and Agency’ for a critical review.

12 ‘Understanding Volition’ Philosophical Psychology 17 (2004) 247-73; ‘Locating Volition’ Consciousness and Cognition 13 (2004) 302-22; ‘Reclaiming Volition: An Alternative Interpretation of Libef s Experiment’ Journal of Consciousness Studies 10 (2003) 61-77 (No. 11).

13 Searle, J. Rationality in Action (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 2001), 14–15.Google Scholar

14 Ibid., 13, 275-6.

15 Kaufman, A.S. (1966). ‘Practical Decision’ Mind 75 (1966) 25–44;CrossRefGoogle Scholar McCall, S. ‘Decision’ Canadian Journal of Philosophy 17 (1987) 261–88;CrossRefGoogle Scholar McCann, H. The Works of Agency, ch. 8;Google Scholar Mele, A.R. ‘Deciding to Act’ Philosophical Studies 100 (2000) 81–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Nathan, N.M.L. Will and World, ch. 9;Google Scholar Wells, H.M. The Phenomenology of Acts of Choice: An Analysis of Volitional Consciousness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1927);Google Scholar Zimmerman, M.J. An Essay on Human Action (New York: Peter Lang 1984), ch. 3.Google Scholar

17 Recent findings in cognitive neuroscience indicate that the neural underpinnings that are essential in supporting these three types of mental activities share some common brain structures and are organized in an integral, meaningful way. See my ‘Locating Volition’ for a review.

18 Kane, R. The Significance of Free Will (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press 1996), 24.Google Scholar

19 Mele, Springs of Action, chs 8-11; Motivation and Agency (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2003) 27-8.

20 See Springs of Action, ch. 9 & 10.

21 Ibid., 162.

22 Ibid., 130-7.

23 Brand (in Intending and Acting) and Bratman (in Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason) make similar distinctions. Cf. Searle's distinction between prior intention and intention in action in his Intentionality, ch. 3.

24 See their ‘The Intention/Volition Debate.'

25 Armstrong, D.M. ‘Acting and Trying,’ in his The Nature of Mind and Other Essays (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1980), 68–88;Google Scholar Davis, L. Theory of Action; Hornsby, J. Actions (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1980);Google Scholar H. McCann, ‘Trying, Paralysis, and Volition'; O'Shaughnessy, B. ‘Trying (as the Mental ‘Pineal Gland’),’ Journal of Philosophy 70 (1973) 365–86;CrossRefGoogle Scholar The Will.

26 James, W. The Principles of Psychology, Vol. 2 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1981), 1101.Google Scholar

27 Armstrong, D.M. ‘Acting and Trying’ 70.Google Scholar

28 O'Shaughnessy, B. The Will, 264.Google Scholar

29 ‘The Intention/Volition Debate’ 328.

30 Ibid., 326.

31 Ibid., 328.

32 Ibid., 327.

33 See Adams and Mele, ‘The Role of Intention in Intentional Action’ Canadian Journal of Philosophy 19 (1989) 511-32.

34 See ‘The Intention/Volition Debate’ 331-2 for a list of the phenomena that volitions are postulated to explain. Adams and Mele argue that trying can perfectly do the explanatory work attributed to volitions.

35 Mele, ‘Deciding to Act’ Philosophical Studies, 100 (2000) 81–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also his Motivation and Agency (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2003), ch. 9.

36 See B. O'Shaughnessy, ‘Trying (as the Mental “Pineal Gland”).’

37 Mele, Springs of Action, 177Google Scholar and 192.

38 The Principles of Psychology, Vol. 2, 1132-3.

39 Ibid., 1130.

40 Springs of Action, 179.

41 Ibid.

42 See Zhu, J. and Thagard, P. ‘Emotion and Action’ Philosophical Psychology, 15 (2002) 19–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 Springs of Action, 167.

44 The Principles of Psychology, Vol. 2, 1134.

46 See Mele, Springs of Action, ch. 12 for a discussion on the default condition of acquisitions of intentions.

47 Norman, D.A. ‘Categorization of Action Slips’ Psychological Review 88 (1981) 1–15;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Reason, J. and K., Mycielska Absent-Minded? The Psychology of Mental Lapses and Everyday Errors (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall 1982);Google Scholar Reason, J. Human Error (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1990);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Heckhausen, H. and Beckmann, J. ‘Intentional Action and Action Slips’ Psychological Review 97(1990) 36–48;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Baars, B.J. éd., Experimental Slips and Human Error: Exploring the Architecture of Volition (New York: Plenum 1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48 Reason and Mycielska, Absent-Minded? The Psychology of Mental Lapses and Everyday Errors, ch. 10; Reason, Human Error, ch. 7.

49 Baars, éd., Experimental Slips and Human Error: Exploring the Architecture of Volition; ‘Why Volition is a Foundation Problem for Psychology’ Consciousness and Cognition 2 (1993) 281-309.

50 Hershberger, W.A. éd., Volitional Action: Conation and Control (Amsterdam: Elsevier 1989).Google Scholar

51 Baars, ‘Introduction’ in Experimental Slips and Human Error: Exploring the Architecture of Volition, 4.Google Scholar

52 Kahneman, D. Attention and Effort (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall 1973), 4.Google Scholar

53 Mele, Irrationality: An Essay on Akrasia, Self-deception, and Self-control (New York: Oxford University Press 1987), 26–7.Google Scholar

54 Ibid., 26.

55 Ibid.

56 Ibid.

57 See Mele, ‘Motivational Strength’ Nous 32 (1998) 23–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Cf. Thalberg, I. ‘Questions about Motivational Strength’ in LePore, E. and B., MeLaughlin eds. Actions and Events (Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1985).Google Scholar

58 See McCann, H. ‘Intention and Motivational Strength’ Journal of Philosophical Research 20 (1995) 571–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Cf. Mele, ‘Motivation and Intention’ Journal of Philosophical Research 21 (1996) 51–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

59 Mele, Irrationality, 26.Google Scholar

60 I would like to thank Andrei Buckareff, Puqun Li, Paul Thagard, and Jeff Zucker, as well as three anonymous referees, for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.