We all know what a voluntary action is - we all think we know when an action is voluntary, and when it is not. First, there has to be some wish or goal, then an action designed to fulfil that wish or attain that goal. This standard view of voluntary action is prominent in both folk psychology and the professional sphere (e.g. the juridical) and guides a great deal of psychological and philosophical reasoning. But is it that simple though? For example, research from the neurosciences has shown us that the brain activation required to perform the action can actually precede the brain activation representing our conscious desire to perform that action. Only in retrospect do we come to attribute the action we performed to some desire or wish to perform the action.
This presents us with a problem - if our conscious awareness of an action follows its execution, then is it really a voluntary action?
The question guiding this book: What is the explanatory role of voluntary action, and are there ways that we can reconcile our common-sense intuitions about voluntary actions with the findings from the sciences? This is a debate that crosses the boundaries of philosophy, neuroscience, psychology and social science. This book brings together some of the leading thinkers from these disciplines to consider this deep and often puzzling topic. The result is a fascinating and stimulating debate that will challenge our fundamental assumptions about our sense of free-will.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
. . . the book represents a very good overview of existing arguments and research relating to the topic of free will. Every chapter is unique and very much up to date . . . the book is a very good investment. * Science and Consciousness Review *
Sprache
Verlagsort
Zielgruppe
Illustrationen
Maße
Höhe: 269 mm
Breite: 193 mm
Dicke: 17 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-0-19-852754-1 (9780198527541)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Maasen, Sabine (Professor of Science Studies, University of Basel, Switzerland) / Prinz, Wolfgang (Director of the Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research, Germany) / Roth, Gerhard (Professor of Zoology/Director of Brain Research Institute, University
Herausgeber*in
, Professor of Science Studies, University of Basel, Switzerland
, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research, Munich, Germany
, Hanse Institute for Advanced Study, Delmenhorst, Germany
Voluntary action: brains, minds, and sociality ; SECTION I: BETWEEN MOTIVATION AND CONTROL: PSYCHOLOGICAL ACCOUNTS OF VOLUNTARY ACTION ; 1. How do we know about our own actions? ; 2. Acquisition and control of voluntary action ; 3. Voluntary action and cognitive control from a cognitive neuroscience perspective ; 4. Voluntary action from the perspective of social-personality psychology ; SECTION II: BETWEEN CORTEX AND THE BASAL GANGLIA: NEUROSCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTS OF VOLUNTARY ACTION ; 5. The interaction of cortex and basal ganglia in the control of voluntary actions ; 6. How do we control action? ; 7. Self-generated actions ; SECTION III: BETWEEN EPIPHENOMENALISM AND RATIONALITY: PHILOSOPHICAL ACCOUNTS OF VOLUNTARY ACTION ; 8. Mental causation: the supervenience argument and the proportionality constraint ; 9. The explanatory role of consciousness in action ; 10. How voluntary are minimal actions ; 11. Rational and irrational intentions: an argument for externalism ; SECTION IV: BETWEEN THE NORMATIVE AND THE SYMBOLIC: JURIDICIAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL ACCOUNTS OF VOLUNTARY ACTION ; 12. First-person understanding of action in criminal law ; 13. Voluntary action and criminal responsibility ; 14. Culture and human development in a theory of action beliefs ; SECTION V: QUESTIONING THE MULTIDISCIPLINARY FIELD ; 15. A polytheistic conception of the sciences and the virtues of deep variety ; 16. A view from elsewhere: the emergence of consciousness in multidisciplinary discourse
