Mental overpopulation and mental action: Protecting intentions from mental birth control

Canadian Journal of Philosophy

Volumn 37, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 49-65

  Buckareff, Andrei A ^a  

^a FRANKLIN AND MARSHALL COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 70749112359     PISSN: 00455091     EISSN: 19110820     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/cjp.2007.0009     Document Type: Review

References (59)

1. David-Hillel Ruben, 'Mental Overpopulation and the Problem of Action,' Journal of Philosophical Research 20 (1995) 511-24
2. and Action and its Explanation (New York: Oxford University Press 2003)
3. This is a rough CTA schema offered by Jing Zhu and I in our paper 'Causalisms Reconsidered,' Dialogue 43 (2004) 147-55, at 147
4. Ruben, 'Doing Without Happenings: Three Theories of Action' in Contemporary Action Theory, Vol. 1: Individual Action, G. Homstrom-Hintikka and R. Tuomela, eds. (Dordrecht: Kluwer 1997), 267-86, at 268
5. cf. his similar remarks in Action and its Explanation, 98
6. Ruben, Action and its Explanation, 98
7. See also 'Mental Overpopulation and the Problem of Action,' 512, and 'Doing Without Happenings,' 268
8. Action and its Explanation, 98
9. 'Mental Overpopulation and the Problem of Action,' 514. See also Action and its Explanation, 147-8
10. For a defense of the claim that intentions can be rationalizers of action, see J. David Velleman, Practical Reflection (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1989), especially chapters 4 and 7
11. 'Mental Overpopulation and the Problem of Action,' 513
12. For a fuller picture of Ruben's theory of action beyond what he says about mental action, see Action and its Explanation, especially 174-84
13. See also 'Doing Without Happenings: Three Theories of Action'
14. and 'The Active and the Passive,' Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 71 (1997) 229-46. It is worth noting in passing that Ruben dispenses with any attempts at identifying some property or properties that distinguish actions from non-actions. He claims in Action and its Explanation that 'there is no feature, F, other than the feature itself of being an action (or a feature which presupposes that anything that has it is an action). What makes an action what it is, is nothing other than its being an action' (184)
15. What I will ignore that Mele takes up is Ruben's claim that desires alone cannot provide rationalizing explanations of actions. See Alfred R. Mele, 'Agency and Mental Action,' Philosophical Perspectives 11 (1997) 231-49, at 238-40
16. In ibid., 235-8
17. 'Plea for Mental Acts,' Synthese 129 (2001) 105-28, at 108
18. 'Cognitive Trying,' in Contemporary Action Theory, Vol. 1, G. Holmstrom-Hintikka and R. Tuomelo, eds., 287-314
19. see 289-91. For similar views, see Fred Adams and Alfred R. Mele, 'The Intention/Volition Debate,' Canadian Journal of Philosophy 22 (1992) 323-38
20. Different deflationary accounts of the will are also offered by David Armstong, The Nature of Mind (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1980), 68-88
21. and Timothy Cleveland, 'Trying Without Willing,' Australasian Journal of Philosophy 70 (1992) 324-42
22. Compare the volitionist accounts endorsed by Carl Ginet, 'Trying to Act,' in Freedom and Determinism, J.K. Campbell, M. O'Rourke, and D. Shier, eds. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 2004), 89-102
23. Jennifer Hornsby, Actions (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1980), ch. 3
24. Hugh J. McCann, The Works of Agency: On Human Action, Will, and Freedom (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1998), ch. 5
25. Brian O'Shaughnessy, 'Trying (As the Mental "Pineal Gland"),' in The Philosophy of Action, A. Mele, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press 1997), 53-74, at 56
26. and The Will, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1980)
27. Adams and Mele write in 'The Intention/Volition Debate' that 'Roughly, trying to A is an event or process that has A-ing as a goal and is initiated and (normally) sustained by a pertinent intention. Successful tryings to A, rather than causing A-ings, are A-ings' (326)
28. Thanks are due to Randolph Clarke for pointing out this distinction between a component versus product view of the role of an intention in trying
29. For my purposes here, I am remaining non-committal with respect to the two views. It is worth noting that on the Single Phenomenon View, S's intention may include A-ing in what Michael Bratman calls its 'motivational potential' although S does not, strictly speaking, intend to A. See his paper, 'Two Faces of Intention' in The Philosophy of Action, A. Mele, ed., 178-203, at 198
30. For defenses of versions of the Single Phenomenon View, see the article by Myles Brand, 'Intention and Intentional Action,' in Contemporary Action Theory, Vol 1, G. Holmstrom-Hintikka and R. Tuomela, eds., 197-217
31. and Alfred R. Mele, Springs of Action: Understanding Intentional Behavior (New York: Oxford University Press 1992), ch. 8
32. For defenses of the Simple View, see Frederick Adams, 'Intention and Intentional Action: The Simple View,' Mind and Language 1 (1986) 281-301
33. David K. Chan, 'A Not-So-Simple View of Intentional Action,' Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 80 (1999) 1-16
34. Jorge Garcia, 'The Intentional and the Intended,' Erkenntnis 33 (1990) 191-209
35. and Hugh McCann, The Works of Agency, ch. 10
36. On pages 520-1. A version of the case of the FORGETFUL THINKER appears in Action and its Explanation, 149-50. But the version in 'Mental Overpopulation' is more fully developed and thus a better target
37. 'Mental Overpopulation and the Problem of Action,' 520
38. Both John Bishop and an anonymous referee for this journal advised that I explain why discussing (b)-scenarios is not otiose
39. 'Mental Overpopulation and the Problem of Action,' 521
40. The capacity for such metamental control by agents is discussed in the psychological literature on metacognition. For interesting discussions, see Cesare Comoldi, "The Impact of Metacognitive Reflection on Cognitive Control,' in Metacognition and Cognitive Neuropsychology: Monitoring and Control Processes, G. Mazzoni and T. Nelson, eds. (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum 1998), 139-59
41. and Diego Fernandez - Duque, Jodie A. Baird, and Michael I. Posner, 'Executive Attention and Metacognitive Regulation,' Consciousness and Cognition 9 (2000) 288-307
42. Wegner discusses the findings in Daniel M. Wegner, David J. Schneider, Samuel R. Carter III, and Teri L. White, 'Paradoxical Effects of Thought Suppression,' Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 53 (1987) 5-13
43. Daniel M. Wegner, 'Ironic Processes of Mental Control,' Psychological Review 101 (1994) 34-52
44. and Daniel M. Wegner, White Bears and Other Unwanted Thoughts: Suppression, Obsession, and the Psychology of Mental Control (New York: Guilford 1994)
45. Wegner, White Bears and Other Unwanted Thoughts, 4
46. 'Ironic Processes of Mental Control,' 34
47. White Bears and Other Unwanted Thoughts, 2
48. See ibid., chs. 2-6
49. Of course, as Hugh McCann pointed out to me, it seems unlikely that the agent's thinking would be unintentional and non-actional if the agent continued to think about the puzzle or name for very long
50. This was suggested to me by Hugh McCann
51. Hugh McCann brought this feature of intention to my attention
52. In McCann, The Works of Agency, 142
53. Ruben, Action and Its Explanation, 104-10
54. John Bishop, 'Naturalising Mental Action,' in Contemporary Action Theory, Vol. 1, G. Holmstrom-Hintikka and R. Tuomela, eds., 251-66, at 259-64
55. Ruben's discussion of Bishop is in Action and Its Explanation, 150-2
56. Action and Its Explanation, 151
57. See Bratman's 'Valuing and the Will,' Philosophical Perspectives 14 (2000) 249-65, especially 258
58. Particularly in Action and Its Explanation, 91-110
59. I am grateful to Jesus Aguilar, John Bishop, Randolph Clarke, Zac Cogley, Alfred Mele, David-Hillel Ruben, Rebekah Rice, Jing Zhu, two anonymous referees for this journal, and especially Hugh J. McCann for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. While their comments have helped me to avoid many errors, the mistakes that remain are entirely my own