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Book synopsis

What is the difference between a wink and a blink? The answer is important not only to philosophers of mind, for significant moral and legal consequences rest on the distinction between voluntary and involuntary behavior. However, "action theory" -- the branch of philosophy that has traditionally articulated the boundaries between action and non-action, and between voluntary and involuntary behavior -- has been unable to account for the difference. Alicia Juarrero argues that a mistaken, 350-year-old model of cause and explanation -- one that takes all causes to be of the push-pull, efficient cause sort, and all explanation to be prooflike -- underlies contemporary theories of action. Juarrero then proposes a new framework for conceptualizing causes based on complex adaptive systems. Thinking of causes as dynamical constraints makes bottom-up and top-down causal relations, including those involving intentional causes, suddenly tractable. A different logic for explaining actions -- as historical narrative, not inference -- follows if one adopts this novel approach to long-standing questions of action and responsibility.

Book details

Book category Books in English Society & social sciences Psychology Psychological theory & schools of thought

• Full title: Dynamics in Action
• Author: Alicia Juarrero
• Language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 300
• EAN: 9780262600477
• ISBN: 0262600471
• ID: 04044444
• Publisher: MIT Press Ltd
• Weight: 406 g
• Dimensions: 153 × 228 × 21 mm
• Date of publishing: 25. January 2002

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