Personal Agency
The Metaphysics of Mind and Action
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Product details:
- Publisher OUP Oxford
- Date of Publication 4 September 2008
- ISBN 9780199217144
- Binding Hardback
- No. of pages242 pages
- Size 242x163x20 mm
- Weight 522 g
- Language English 0
Categories
Short description:
Lowe defends a common-sense view of ourselves as free agents, capable of bringing about changes in the world through the choices we make, rather than being caused to act as we do by factors external to our will. He demonstrates many weaknesses of the materialist conception of the human mind and its powers that is dominant in Western philosophy.
MoreLong description:
Personal Agency consists of two parts. In Part II, a radically libertarian theory of action is defended which combines aspects of agent causalism and volitionism. This theory accords to volitions the status of basic mental actions, maintaining that these are spontaneous exercises of the will--a 'two-way' power which rational agents can freely exercise in the light of reason. Lowe contends that substances, not events, are the causal source of all change in the world--with rational, free agents like ourselves having a special place in the causal order as unmoved movers, or initiators of new causal chains. And he defends a thoroughgoing externalism regarding reasons for action, holding these to be mind-independent worldly entities rather than the beliefs and desires of agents. Part I prepares the ground for this theory by undermining the threat presented to it by physicalism. It does this by challenging the causal closure argument for physicalism in all of its forms and by showing that a dualistic philosophy of mind--one which holds that human mental states and their subjects cannot be identified with bodily states and human bodies respectively--is both metaphysically coherent and entirely consistent with known empirical facts.
Refreshing... I'm greatly impressed by the depth and breadth of his thinking, and by the clarity of his exposition of intricate topics.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Part I: Mental Causation, Causal Closure, and Emergent Dualism
Self, Agency, and Mental Causation
Causal Closure Principles and Emergentism
Physical Causal Closure and the Invisibility of Mental Causation
Could Volitions be Epiphenomenal?
The Self as an Emergent Substance
Part II: Persons, Rational Action, and Free Will
Event Causation and Agent Causation
Personal Agency
Substance Causation, Persons, and Free Will
Rational Selves and Freedom of Action
Needs, Facts, Goodness, and Truth
Bibliography
Index
