ISBN : 9780198825852
How can we be active agents when processes in the world are explicable by the laws of natural science? Erasmus Mayr explores this deep-running tension in our self-understanding and develops a new agent-causal solution to the conflict. He argues that actions explained by aims and reasons are compatible with a scientific view of the universe.
Introduction
1 The Problem of Human Agency
2 The Agenda for Finding a Solution
3 'Alien' Desires and Frankfurt's Problem of Identification
4 Identification, Desires, and Practical reasoning
5 Deviant Causal Chains
6 How Agent-Causation Works I: The Problem, and a Brief Theory of Powers
7 How Agent-Causation Works II: The irreducibility of powers
8 How Agent-Causation Works III: From Causal Powers to Agent-Causation
9 Are Agent-Causal Powers reducible to Microproperties?
10 Intentional Agency and Acting for Reasons
11 Understanding Human Agency
References
Index
