Kant on Freedom and Rational Agency

Kant on Freedom and Rational Agency PDF Author: Markus Kohl
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198873166
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 410

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Book Description
Kant on Freedom and Rational Agency provides a novel interpretation and rational reconstruction of Kant's doctrine of freedom. Markus Kohl shows how Kant defends the belief that we are free from foreign (natural and super-natural) causes as a presupposition of all meaningful human activity. While this interpretation focuses on the essential role that freedom of will plays in our moral agency, it also examines how our status as rational cognitive agents hinges on our freedom of thought, and why our aesthetic engagement with beauty requires our freedom of imagination. Kohl thereby gives a compelling sense of Kant's estimation that freedom is a "cardinal point"—even the "keystone"—of his entire critical philosophy. Kant's doctrine of freedom emerges in this account as a systematic critique of a naturalistic worldview which regards all our capacities, representations, and actions as the causal upshot of natural laws and forces. Kant holds that the naturalistic worldview fatally undermines our self-conception as rational agents. This critique of naturalism culminates in the argument that naturalistic cognizers cannot explain away our freedom from natural forces because they must presuppose such a freedom in their own cognitive efforts to devise rationally valid naturalistic theories.

Kant on Freedom and Rational Agency

Kant on Freedom and Rational Agency PDF Author: Markus Kohl
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198873166
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 410

Get Book Here

Book Description
Kant on Freedom and Rational Agency provides a novel interpretation and rational reconstruction of Kant's doctrine of freedom. Markus Kohl shows how Kant defends the belief that we are free from foreign (natural and super-natural) causes as a presupposition of all meaningful human activity. While this interpretation focuses on the essential role that freedom of will plays in our moral agency, it also examines how our status as rational cognitive agents hinges on our freedom of thought, and why our aesthetic engagement with beauty requires our freedom of imagination. Kohl thereby gives a compelling sense of Kant's estimation that freedom is a "cardinal point"—even the "keystone"—of his entire critical philosophy. Kant's doctrine of freedom emerges in this account as a systematic critique of a naturalistic worldview which regards all our capacities, representations, and actions as the causal upshot of natural laws and forces. Kant holds that the naturalistic worldview fatally undermines our self-conception as rational agents. This critique of naturalism culminates in the argument that naturalistic cognizers cannot explain away our freedom from natural forces because they must presuppose such a freedom in their own cognitive efforts to devise rationally valid naturalistic theories.

The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Agency

The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Agency PDF Author: Luca Ferrero
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429514190
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 702

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Book Description
One of the most basic and important distinctions we draw is between those entities with the capacity of agency and those without. As humans we enjoy agency in its full-blooded form and therefore a proper understanding of the nature of agency is of great importance to appreciate who we are and what we should expect and demand of our existence. The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Agency is an outstanding reference source to the key issues, problems, and debates in this exciting subject and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising 42 chapters by an international team of contributors, the Handbook is divided into eight clear parts: The Metaphysics of Agency Kinds of Agency Agency and Ability Agency: Mind, Body, and World Agency and Knowledge Agency and Moral Psychology Agency and Time Agency, Reasoning, and Normativity. A broad range of topics are covered, including the relation of agency to causation, teleology, animal agency, intentionality, planning, skills, disability, practical knowledge, self-knowledge, the will, responsibility, autonomy, identification, emotions, personal identity, reasons, morality, the law, aesthetics, and games. The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Agency is essential reading for students and researchers within philosophy of action, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, philosophy of psychology, and ethics.

Foundations of Rational Agency

Foundations of Rational Agency PDF Author: Michael Wooldridge
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401592047
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
This volume represents an advanced, comprehensive state-of-the-art survey of the field of rational agency as it stands today. It covers the philosophical foundations of rational agency, logical and decision-theoretic approaches to rational agency, multi-agent aspects of rational agency and a number of approaches to programming rational agents. It will be of interest to researchers in logic, mainstream computer science, the philosophy of rational action and agency, and economics.

Rational and Social Agency

Rational and Social Agency PDF Author: Manuel Vargas
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199794669
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Michael Bratman's work has been unusually influential, with significance in disciplines as diverse as philosophy, computer science, law, and primatology. This is a collection of critical essays by some of contemporary philosophy's most distinguished figures, including Margaret Gilbert, Richard Holton, Christine Korsgaard, Alfred Mele, Elijah Milgram, Kieran Setiya, Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, Scott Shapiro, Michael Smith, J. David Velleman, R. Jay Wallace. It also contains an introduction by the editors, situating Bratman's work and its broader significance. The essays in this volume engage with ideas and themes prominent in Bratman's work. The volume also includes a lengthy reply by Bratman that breaks new ground and deepens our understanding of the nature of action, rationality, and social agency.

Philosophy of Psychology

Philosophy of Psychology PDF Author: Kengo Miyazono
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509515518
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
Are we rational creatures? Do we have free will? Can we ever know ourselves? These and other fundamental questions have been discussed by philosophers over millennia. But recent empirical findings in psychology and neuroscience suggest we should reconsider them. This textbook provides an engrossing overview of contemporary debates in the philosophy of psychology, exploring the ways in which the interaction and collaboration between psychologists and philosophers contribute to a better understanding of the human mind, cognition and behaviour. Miyazono and Bortolotti discuss pivotal studies in cognitive psychology, social psychology, developmental psychology, evolutionary psychology, clinical psychology and neuroscience, and their implications for philosophy. Combining the latest philosophical and psychological research with an accessible style, Philosophy of Psychology is a crucial resource for students from either discipline. It is the most up-to-date text for modules on philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of mental health and philosophy of cognitive science.

Scientific Explanation, Causality, and Agency

Scientific Explanation, Causality, and Agency PDF Author: Majid D. Beni
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040093159
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
This book draws on advances in computational neuroscience and theoretical biology to provide a clear and accessible agentive account of the nature of causality and scientific explanations. Instead of attempting to establish the elements of scientific explanation, such as causality, in a reality unadulterated by a human perspective, this book relies on scientific facts about cognition to describe the structure of agency from a distinctly human perspective. The book draws on the Free Energy Principle to reinforce the agency theory of causality and extend it to an account of explanation as well. This principle not only provides a theoretical account of how self-organising systems engage with the causal structure of the environment, but it also offers a viable notion of agency and is compatible with the projectivist aspects of the agency theory. Scientific Explanation, Causality, and Agency will appeal to researchers and advanced students working in philosophy of science, philosophy of cognitive science, epistemology, computational neuroscience, and theoretical biology.

A Configuration Approach to Mindset Agency Theory

A Configuration Approach to Mindset Agency Theory PDF Author: Maurice Yolles
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108833322
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 729

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Book Description
This book presents a new agency paradigm that can resolve complex socio-political situations in cross-cultural environments.

Empathy And Agency

Empathy And Agency PDF Author: Hans Herbert Kogler
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429980469
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
A crucial debate currently raging in the fields of cognitive and social science centers around general and specific approaches to understanding the actions of others. When we understand the actions of another person, do we do so on the basis of a general theory of psychology, or on the basis of an effort to place ourselves in the particular position of that specific person? Hans Herbert Kögler and Karsten R. Stueber's Empathy and Agency addresses this other issues vital to current social science in an advanced and diverse analysis of the foundations of social-scientific methodology based on recent cognitive psychology. The book serves as both an introduction to the debate for non-academic audiences and as a catalyst for further discussion for serious theorists. Empathy and Agency provides a solid foundation of the fundamental issues in social and cognitive science, but also presents the most influential paradigms in the field at this time.

Moral Psychology and Human Agency

Moral Psychology and Human Agency PDF Author: Justin D'Arms
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191030066
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 445

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Book Description
These ten original essays examine the moral and philosophical implications of developments in the science of ethics, the growing movement that seeks to use recent empirical findings to answer long-standing ethical questions. Efforts to make moral psychology a thoroughly empirical discipline have divided philosophers along methodological fault lines, isolating discussions that will profit more from intellectual exchange. This volume takes an even-handed approach, including essays from advocates of empirical ethics as well as those who are sceptical of some of its central claims. Some of these essays make novel use of empirical findings to develop philosophical research programs regarding such crucial moral phenomena as desire, emotion, and memory. Others bring new critical scrutiny to bear on some of the most influential proposals of the empirical ethics movement, including the claim that evolution undermines moral realism, the effort to recruit a dual-process model of the mind to support consequentialism against other moral theories, and the claim that ordinary evaluative judgments are seldom if ever sensitive to reasons, because moral reasoning is merely the post hoc rationalization of unthinking emotional response.

Animals and Agency

Animals and Agency PDF Author: Sarah McFarland
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047429249
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
While many scholars who write about animals deal with animal agency in some way, this volume is the first to position the question of nonhuman agency as the primary focus of inquiry. Section I presents studies of actual animals demonstrating agency; Section II moves agency into new terrain while considering key representations of animal agency in literature; Section III analyzes animals as mediators and as conveyances of human-to-human communication;and Section IV investigates the agency of beings who defy conventional species categories. The Envoi demonstrates how the microscopic polyp is interwoven into notions of agency and mythical superagency. This volume's interdisciplinary explorations press hard on issues of agency to open up space for more questions about how we can understand relationships between the human and the nonhuman.