Self-Knowing Agents

Self-Knowing Agents PDF Author: Lucy O'Brien
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 0191615544
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 438

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Book Description
Lucy OBrien argues that a satisfactory account of first-person reference and self-knowledge needs to concentrate on our nature as agents. She considers two main questions. First, what account of first-person reference can we give that respects the guaranteed nature of such reference? Second, what account can we give of our knowledge of our mental and physical actions? Clearly written, with rigorous discussion of rival views, this book will be of interest to anyone working in the philosophy of mind and action.

Self-Knowing Agents

Self-Knowing Agents PDF Author: Lucy O'Brien
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 0191615544
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 438

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Book Description
Lucy OBrien argues that a satisfactory account of first-person reference and self-knowledge needs to concentrate on our nature as agents. She considers two main questions. First, what account of first-person reference can we give that respects the guaranteed nature of such reference? Second, what account can we give of our knowledge of our mental and physical actions? Clearly written, with rigorous discussion of rival views, this book will be of interest to anyone working in the philosophy of mind and action.

Transparency and Self-Knowledge

Transparency and Self-Knowledge PDF Author: Alex Byrne
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192554735
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Alex Byrne sets out and defends a theory of self-knowledge-knowledge of one's mental states. Inspired by Gareth Evans' discussion of self-knowledge in his The Varieties of Reference, the basic idea is that one comes to know that one is in a mental state M by an inference from a worldly or environmental premise to the conclusion that one is in M. (Typically the worldly premise will not be about anything mental.) The mind, on this account, is 'transparent': self-knowledge is achieved by an 'outward glance' at the corresponding tract of the world, not by an 'inward glance' at one's own mind. Belief is the clearest case, with the inference being from 'p' to 'I believe that p'. One serious problem with this idea is that the inference seems terrible, because 'p' is at best very weak evidence that one believes that p. Another is that the idea seems not to generalize. For example, what is the worldly premise corresponding to 'I intend to do this', or 'I feel a pain'? Byrne argues that both problems can be solved, and explains how the account covers perception, sensation, desire, intention, emotion, memory, imagination, and thought. The result is a unified theory of self-knowledge that explains the epistemic security of beliefs about one's mental states (privileged access), as well as the fact that one has a special first-person way of knowing about one's mental states (peculiar access).

Talking to Our Selves

Talking to Our Selves PDF Author: John Michael Doris
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199570396
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
Do we know what we're doing, and why? Psychological research seems to suggest not: reflection and self-awareness are surprisingly uncommon and inaccurate. John M. Doris presents a new account of agency and responsibility, which reconciles our understanding of ourselves as moral agents with empirical work on the unconscious mind.

Free Will, Agency, and Selfhood in Indian Philosophy

Free Will, Agency, and Selfhood in Indian Philosophy PDF Author: Matthew R. Dasti
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019992273X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
Focusing on the rich and variegated cluster of Indic philosophical traditions as they developed from the late Vedic period up to the pre-modern period, this book offers an understanding, according to each school, of the nature of free will and agency.

Self to Self

Self to Self PDF Author: J. David Velleman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521854290
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
This collection of essays by philosopher J. David Velleman on personal identity, autonomy, and moral emotions is united by an overarching thesis that there is no single entity denoted by 'the self', as well as themes from Kantian ethics and Velleman's work in the philosophy of action.

Sense of Agency: Examining Awareness of the Acting Self

Sense of Agency: Examining Awareness of the Acting Self PDF Author: Nicole David
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
ISBN: 2889196240
Category : Ego (Psychology)
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
The sense of agency is defined as the sense of oneself as the agent of one's own actions. This also allows oneself to feel distinct from others, and contributes to the subjective phenomenon of self-consciousness (Gallagher, 2000). Distinguishing oneself from others is arguably one of the most important functions of the human brain. Even minor impairments in this ability profoundly affect the individual’s functioning in society as demonstrated by psychiatric and neurological syndromes involving agency disturbances (Della Sala et al., 1991; Franck et al., 2001; Frith, 2005; Sirigu et al., 1999). But the sense of agency also plays a role for cultural and religious phenomena such as voodoo, superstition and gambling, in which individuals experience subjective control over objectively uncontrollable entities (Wegner, 2003). Furthermore, it plays into ethical and law questions concerning responsibility and guilt. For these reasons a better understanding of the sense of agency has been important for neuroscientists, clinicians, philosophers of mind and the general society alike. Significant progress has been made in this regard. For example, philosophical scrutiny has helped establish the conceptual boundaries of the sense of agency (Bayne, 2011; Gallagher, 2000, 2012; Pacherie 2008; Synofzik et al., 2008) and scientific investigations have shed light on the neurocognitive basis of sense of agency including the brain regions supporting sense of agency (Chambon et al., 2013; David et al., 2007; Farrer et al., 2003, 2008; Spengler et al., 2009; Tsakiris et al., 2010; Yomogida et al., 2010). Despite this progress there remain a number of outstanding questions such as: • Are there cross-cultural differences in the sense of agency? • How does the sense of agency develop in infants or change across the lifespan? • How does social context influence sense of agency? • What neural networks support sense of agency (i.e., connectivity and communication between brain regions)? • What are the temporal dynamics with respect to neural processes underlying the sense of agency (i.e. the what and when of agency processing)? • How can different cue models of the sense of agency be further specified and empirically supported, especially with regards to cue integration/ weighting? • What are the applications of sense of agency research (clinically, engineering etc.)? The concept of the sense of agency offers intriguing avenues for knowledge transfer across disciplines and interdisciplinary empirical approaches, especially in addressing the afore-mentioned outstanding questions. The aim of the present research topic is to promote and facilitate such interdisciplinarity for a better understanding of why and how we typically experience our own actions so naturally and undoubtedly as “ours” and what goes awry when we do not. We, thus, welcome contributions from, for example, (i) neuroscience and psychology (including development psychology/ neuroscience), (ii) psychiatry and neurology, (iii) philosophy, (iv) robotics, and (v) computational modeling. In addition to empirical or scientific studies of the sense of agency, we also encourage theoretical contributions including reviews, models, and opinions.

Knowing Our Own Minds

Knowing Our Own Minds PDF Author: Crispin Wright
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 0191519111
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 461

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Book Description
Self-knowledge is the focus of considerable attention from philosophers: Knowing Our Own Minds gives a much-needed overview of current work on the subject, bringing together new essays by leading figures. Knowledge of one's own sensations, desires, intentions, thoughts, beliefs, and other attitudes is characteristically different from other kinds of knowledge, such as knowledge of other people's mental attributes: it has greater immediacy, authority, and salience. The first six chapters examine philosophical questions raised by these features of self-knowledge. The next two look at the role of our knowledge of our own psychological states in our functioning as rational agents. The third group of essays examine the tension between the distinctive characteristics of self-knowledge and arguments that psychological content is externally — socially and environmentally — determined. The final pair of chapters extend the discussion to knowledge of one's own language. Together these original, stimulating, and closely interlinked essays demonstrate the special relevance of self-knowledge to a broad range of issues in epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language.

A Compositional Semantic Structure for Multi-Agent Systems Dynamics

A Compositional Semantic Structure for Multi-Agent Systems Dynamics PDF Author:
Publisher: Pascal van Eck
ISBN: 9090147462
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description


Agency and the Foundations of Ethics

Agency and the Foundations of Ethics PDF Author: Paul Katsafanas
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199645078
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Paul Katsafanas explores how we can justify normative claims such as 'murder is wrong'. He defends an original account of constitutivism—the view that we do so by showing that agents become committed to them in virtue of acting—and resolves philosophical puzzles about the metaphysics, epistemology, and practical grip of normative claims.

Engineering Societies in the Agents World X

Engineering Societies in the Agents World X PDF Author: Huib Aldewereld
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642102026
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Workshop on Engineering Societies in the Agents World, ESAW 2009, held in Utrecht, The Netherlands, in November 2009. The 13 revised full papers and 5 short contributions presented together with two invited talks were carefully selected from 31 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on self-organization, software-engineering and architectures, social aspects of agent societies, organization and autonomy. This proceedings concludes with the extended abstracts of 6 contributions to a demonstration session on agent-based technologies and works.