Explanation Of Human Action Research Articles

Феноменологическая социальная теория в контексте постнеклассики

The article uses the model of classical, non-classical and post-non-classical rationality. Post-non-classics is defined in the perspective of increasing the dependence of the object of Science on its method; the paper also analyzes the subjectivity of a new type in the modern theory of knowledge. On the basis of the undertaken analysis, the conclusion is made about the adequacy of phenomenological sociology of a new type of paradigmality — both its General worldview principles and transformations of the social theory itself. Thus, it is shown that phenomenological sociology makes a significant contribution to overcoming the extremes of mentalism and behaviorism in the explanation of human actions by social theory; from the point of view of the General ideological orientation, phenomenology outlines a new vector of relations between natural science and humanitarian knowledge.

A Medieval View of Practical Intentionality

Intentio is a widespread concept in the writings of Thomas Aquinas (1224/5–1274). This article focuses on its use in the description and explanation of human action because Aquinas is the first author to elaborate a coherent conception of practical intentionality in the history of Western philosophy. The analysis shows that his account is characterized by five distinctive features: Practical intentionality is (1) an active striving toward a causally relevant intentional object (i. e., a goal), which is not ‘in the mind’, (2) a volitional state of mind rather than a distinct mental event, (3) action-guiding because it is a principle of concrete human actions which realize it, (4) essentially tied up with rationality, which is needed for bridging the operational distance to the final goal by deliberation on the means conducive to it, (5) potentially complex – allowing for a plurality of simultaneous intentions – but at the same time unified in the hierarchical ordering of means and ends. The article also relates these features to modern discussions of intentionality in phenomenology and in analytic philosophy

Celano: ontological commitment and normative bite

In his article on pre-conventions, Celano presents, what the author calls, the Ontological Commitment Thesis and the Normative Bite Thesis. In this short comment, the author argues that the two theses are together both incompatible with the idea that pre-conventions are facts which have causal powers in human behaviour; also, if the ontological thesis is abandoned, normative determination could not be obtained. In other terms, the author argues that either pre-conventions (as part of the Background) are part of our causal explanation of human behaviour or pre-conventions are abstract entities able to determine human behaviour normatively. In the first case, pre-conventions lack normative meaning, while in the second pre-conventions cannot integrate our causal explanation of human actions. Tertium non datur.

Governing by carrot and stick: a genealogy of the incentive

Managers, politicians and scientists frequently use the term ‘incentive’ in their explanations of human action. At the same time, individuals in the public and private sectors are now governed with the help of incentives. In this thesis, I study the incentive from a theoretical and normative perspective inspired by the work of the French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault. More in particular, I study three successive attempts to demarcate the ‘incentivizable subject’ as an object of knowledge and to design the techniques of power with which that subject could be governed. American engineers were the first professional authority in matters of incentives. For them, the incentivization of employees was synonymous with the introduction of a variant of piece wages. From the 1920s onward, the authority of the engineers was challenged by management scientists with a background in psychology, sociology and anthropology. They developed different explanations for employee behavior and developed a set of alternative techniques to increase productivity. It took until the 1970s for the third rationalization of governing with the help of incentives to emerge. This time, mathematically trained economists forged a link between incentives and information. Finally, I analyze the delimitation of the role granted to the governor and the governed; the contrast between incentives and discipline as rival techniques of power; and the things that are taken for granted in the use of the carrot and the stick as twin elements in a comprehensive program for wielding power over people.

Folk psychology as science

There is a long-standing debate in the philosophy of action and the philosophy of science over folk psychological explanations of human action: do the (perhaps implicit) generalizations that underwrite such explanations purport to state contingent, empirically established connections between beliefs, desires, and actions, or do such generalizations serve rather to define, at least in part, what it is to have a belief or desire, or perform an action? This question has proven important because of certain traditional assumptions made about the role of law-statements in scientific explanations. According to this tradition, law-statements take the form of generalizations, and the laws we find in well-established sciences are contingent and empirical; as such, if the kinds of generalizations at work in folk psychological explanations of human action act like definitions, or state conceptual connections, then such generalizations could not play the kind of explanatory role we find in mature sciences. This paper argues that the aforementioned way of framing the debate reflects a still powerful but impoverished conception of the role laws play in scientific explanations, a conception that, moreover, cannot be reconciled with a good deal of actual scientific practice. When we update the philosophy of science, we find the concerns that are raised for folk psychological explanations largely evaporate or are found not to be specific to such explanations.

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Belief‐Desire Explanation

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Belief‐Desire Explanation

MATTERING AND MECHANISM: MUST A MECHANISTIC UNIVERSE BE DEPRESSING?

AbstractThere is an intuition to the effect that, if human actions are explicable in scientific terms – that is, if mechanism holds – then our lives and actions do not matter. “Mattering” depends on successful intentional explanations of human actions. The intuition springs from an intuitive analogy between manipulation and mechanism: just as a manipulated agent's actions are not successfully explained in intentional terms, neither are the actions of a mechanistic agent. I explore ways to avoid the conclusion of this argument. Some of these ways are more promising than others, but all have non‐trivial philosophical consequences.

How many kinds of reasons?

Reasons can play a variety of roles in a variety of contexts. For instance, reasons can motivate and guide us in our actions (and omissions), in the sense that we often act in the light of reasons. And reasons can be grounds for beliefs, desires and emotions and can be used to evaluate, and sometimes to justify, all these. In addition, reasons are used in explanations: both in explanations of human actions, beliefs, desires, emotions, etc., and in explanations of a wide range of phenomena involving all sorts of animate and inanimate substances. This diversity has encouraged the thought that the term ‘reason’ is ambiguous or has different senses in different contexts. Moreover, this view often goes hand in hand with the claim that reasons of these different kinds belong to different ontological categories: to facts (or something similar) in the case of normative/justifying reasons, and to mental states in the case of motivating/explanatory reasons. In this paper I shall explore some of the main roles that reasons play and, on that basis, I shall offer a classification of kinds of reasons. As will become clear, my classification of reasons is at odds with much of the literature in several respects: first, because of my views about how we should understand the claim that reasons are classified into different kinds; second, because of the kinds into which I think reasons should be classified; and, finally, because of the consequences I think this view has for the ontology of reasons.

The Primacy of the Mental in the Explanation of Human Action

Abstract The mentalistic orthodoxy about reason-explanations of action in the philosophy of mind has recently come under renewed attack. Julia Tanney is among those who have critiqued mentalism. The alternative account of the folk practice of giving reason-explanations of actions she has provided affords features of an agent’s external environment a privileged role in explaining the intentional behaviour of agents. The authors defend the mentalistic orthodoxy from Tanney’s criticisms, arguing that Tanney fails to provide a philosophically satisfying or psychologically realistic account of reason-explanation of action.

The Darwinian Cage

Evolutionary psychology speaks to a common intuition that the biology of the human animal will elucidate human beastliness. In this article I argue that, regardless of whether that intuition is correct, evolutionary psychology fails as an explanation of human action. It fails because, in attempting to replace our everyday moral vocabulary with a mechanical one, it loses sight of the constitutive role of norms in human conduct. In thus disregarding normativity, it sacrifices the ability to identify actions. Evolutionary psychologists respond with either reductionism or pluralism. Reductionism shows itself utterly incapable of providing an adequate account of human actions; pluralism only works by abandoning fundamental features of evolutionary psychology. This ought to convince us that evolutionary psychology. in any of its current guises, has little of interest to teach social science.

La prueba de la intención y la explicación de la acción

This article approaches the problem of attributing intentions to others, trying to relate that issue to, on the one hand, the philosophical problem of the explanation of human actions and, on the other, the procedural-law problem of the proof of criminal intent. Two kinds of conceptions are distinguished from each other, depending on whether they take up or not a cognitivist stance towards the validity of such attributions. The article supports the cognitivist conception, and proposes an outline for reasoning, appropriate for judicial proof of intention, that is based on a Minimal Rationality Principle: the point is to show the connection between intention and rationality, and to suggest that this connection can be used to prove intention.

Om att förstå en handling - från kausalanalys till normanalys

How to understand an action - from causal analysis to norm-analysisIn order to explain and understand actions, one has to find concepts that are sufficiently encompassing to make room for every aspect of underlying causes. Since norms govern and guide behaviour, whether it be social, economic, political/administrative or technical behaviour, the concept of “norm” has this capacity. In this article, the author argues for, and gives an exposition of, what he calls norm-analysis. Causal analysis is used as a point of contrast, and analyses of power as a point of departure, in elaborating the characteristics of normanalysis. It is argued that the proposed concept of “norm” has several advantages when it comes to understanding and explaining human action. The concept has three dimensions: (a) will and values, (b) knowledge and cognition, and (c) systemic possibilities for action. The three dimensions cover different aspects of human actions and behaviour, but the main point is that explanations of human action should be conceived in terms of a combinatory effect of these different dimensions. The norm model is not a theory but a kind of screening device in order to sort out relevant facts in a case. It thereby lays the foundation for a theory of action.

Mental Causation and Searle’s Impossible Conception of Unconscious Intentionality

In my article I evaluate Searle’s account of mental causation, in particular his account of the causal efficacy of unconscious intentional states. I argue that top-down causation and overdetermination are unsolved problems in Searle’s philosophy of mind, despite his assurances to the contrary. I also argue that there are conflicting claims involved in his account of mental causation and his account of the unconscious. As a result, it becomes impossible to understand how unconscious intentional states can be causally efficacious. My conclusion will be that if Searle’s conception of unconscious intentionality is to play a genuine role in the causal explanation of human action, it needs to be rethought.

Connectionism and the causal theory of action explanation

It is widely assumed that common sense psychological explanations of human action are a species of causal explanation. I argue against this construal, drawing on Ramsey et al.’s paper, “Connectionism, eliminativism, and the future of folk psychology”. I argue that if certain connec‐tionist models are correct, then mental states cannot be identified with functionally discrete causes of behavior, and I respond to some recent attempts to deny this claim. However, I further contend that our common sense psychological practices are not committed to the falsity of such connectionist models. The paper concludes that common sense psychology is not committed to the identification of mental states with functionally discrete causes of behavior, and hence that common sense psychology is not committed to the causal account of action explanation.

Challenges Facing Social Economists in the Twenty-First Century: An Institutionalist Perspective

Introduction Welcome to the Association for Social Economics In 1970, the Catholic Economics Association changed its name to the Association for Social Economics. The Association's doors were opened wide to all social economists, and soon many Institutionalists joined the association, including me. We were welcomed with friendship and scholarly support. Nearly a quarter of a century later, institutional economists have been successfully blended into the Association for Social Economics, and the blend was made without damage to the honorable Catholic heritage of the Association. Whether one is an institutionalist or whatever, becoming a social economist still means believing that economics i a moral science. (For more on the moral science see Cochran.) This blending was quite an accomplishment, for Institutionalists are a cantankerous lot and are quick to disagree even among themselves. Furthermore, this accomplishment demonstrated that the association and the research and scholarship its members generate are adaptable and open. Adaptability and openness, along with the continued faith that economics is a moral science, will carry the relevance of Social Economics far into the twenty-first century and, surely, beyond it as well. Perhaps the next century will be the century of the Social Economist. I hope so. To make it so, Social Economics must preserve its core strengths while expanding to meet the challenges of the next century. The Core Strengths of Social Economics The core strengths of Social Economics begin with its adaptability and openness As Mark A. Lutz ruminated, |S~ocial economics is not so much a school of thought as it is an applied discipline studying certain questions (e.g., the valuation process) comparable to, let us say, the history of economic thought. Nothing precludes practitioner from approaching their specialized subject in a highly pluralistic manner . . . (Lutz, 1990, p. 433). So the house of Social Economics is a very spacious one, and its inhabitants ar friendly and open. But Social Economics does not include everyone. Instead, Social Economists are a rather special breed who study the problems of the disadvantaged and propose solutions to those problems. They are not just friendly and open folks, but socially concerned folks as well. And Social Economics is a rather special discipline. It is a value-directed, ameliorative, and holistic economics (Dugger, 1977). It is economics practiced as a moral science (Cochran, 1974). It is economics with values playing a central role in the inquiry. In Social Economics, economics practiced as a moral science, values matter in four senses. First, values matter to Social Economists as concerned individuals whose values help them chose what problems to investigate and what solutions to advocate. We do not simply wander about the field of economics in search of som bone to chew on or rock to look under. We are not puppies who have been taken t the farm for a romp In the barnyard. Instead, our values give direction and meaning to our inquiries. We are value-directed, which is not the same thing as value-biased. Values bias inquiry when they remain implicit and unexamined. Values direct inquiry when they are explicit and examined. Second, values matter to Social Economics as an empirical discipline. In Social Economics as an empirical discipline, it is fully recognized that people have values and that those values affect how they act. So, an explanation of human action must account for human values--how they are formed, how they change, and what difference they make. Values cannot be exogenous in Social Economics. That is, we cannot just assume certain consumer tastes or utility functions and proceed from there to work out the logic of constrained maximization. Such an approach does not explain human action because it leaves out why people act. They act to fulfill values. So values must be made endogenous to the inquiry. …

Neo-classical Economics and Evolutionary Theory: Strange Bedfellows?

On the surface and to a first approximation, economic theory and evolutionary theory share salient features: a commitment to optimality and maximizing, a consequent similarity in mathematical formalism, an appeal to equilibrium as the preferred explanatory strategy. Moreover, both have at various times been stigmatized as empirically empty. However, the theory of natural selection has been widely accepted as the scientific cornerstone of modern biology, while microeconomics has remained open to repeated challenges as an explanation of human action and its aggregate consequences.Because of their similarity, evolutionary theory looks like part of a powerful defense of the status quo in economic theory. I think that Darwinian theory is a remarkably inappropriate model, metaphor, inspiration, or theoretical framework for economic theory.

Homo Sociologicus: Do We Need Him/Her?

Until quite recently rational action or choice theory (spawned by Homo Economicus) had gained few adherents amongst those who struggle to find adequate foundational ideas for a sociological theory. Things now look more promising, however; Coleman has given us a truly remarkable work, and a number of journals are beginning to carry articles informed by a rational choice perspective (1990). For many, of course, the entire edifice of sociological theory rests upon assumptions, either that human actions are neither self-regarding nor rational (i.e., not optimally chosen) or that such actions are of peripheral interest because human actors are propelled by Durkheimian structural forces beyond their control-thus at least one version of Homo Sociologicus. Yet for others, the vocabulary of action and motive provides only post hoc rationalizations, and all we are entitled to examine are the entrails of a rationalizing discourse. I suspect, however, that one reason why rational action theory is experiencing a new lease on life is precisely because these various approaches, when stripped of their verbal pretensions and quasi-philosophical veneer, appear to be rapidly leading us nowhere. Although it would not be prudent to claim that rational choice theory is likely to solve all the theoretical puzzles a sociologist might pose, in my view it must be given pride of place. In the space available I cannot make a sustained case for this assertion. Rather I have chosen to concentrate upon one issue, namely the relationship between explanations of human action from (on the one hand) the precepts of rational action theory (RAT) and (on the other) from the constraint or facilitation of normative expectations. I take this route for a number of reasons: first, because for many, the most compelling mode of sociological explanation is in terms of social norms (i.e., normative expectations); second, because Coleman has argued that action compliant with social norms can be subsumed under RAT; and third, because Elster has argued to the contrary (1989). If Coleman is right and Elster wrong, then the case for at least one conception of Homo Sociologicus is undermined. Elster makes several claims, as follows:

Explanation and interpretation of action

Abstract Contrary to what is usually taken for granted, the traditional positivistic and hermeneutic accounts of explanations of human actions do not really contradict one another. There is no logical or epistemological difference between explanations in this area and explanations in the natural sciences. However, if W. V. Quine and D. Davidson are right, there may be an ontological difference between the explanation of natural events and the interpretation of actions.

A Brief Review of Contextual-Effect Models and Measurement

The intent was to highlight the practical methods and issues of contextual analysis rather than detail the statistical characteristics of any one contextual model. There is too much emphasis in the discussion of contextual effects on forcing theoretical hypotheses into the single-level linear regression model. Similarly there is too much dislike for basic contextual analyses that avoid indiscriminately collapsing reality into a single linear dimension. There is no one correct method for analyzing a contextual effect because there are clearly distinct theoretical and methodological notions of what a contextual effect is. The models reviewed differ primarily according to whether the context is environs characterized by differing types of individuals a characteristic membership of the individual a distinct identifiable environment with unique impact upon individual outcomes or a similar setting with identifiable effects upon causal relationships themselves. The basic question pertains to what a context is and whether it is possible to meaningfully incorporate contexts into explanations of human action. The force of the mechanistic principles embodied in methodologies often accommodate such influences through a forced decomposition of reality into characteristics of the individual rather than those of the environment. Five major linear models represent a general statement of relationship that might also be pursued with a variety of analytical methods other than linear modeling. The first two of these models (individual-effects and macro-effects) are confined to a single level of analysis. The third model is the simplest of those that can be considered a contextual-effect analysis in that both individual and contextual terms are included. The distinction between the simple conditional probability model (Model 3) and the contextual-effects model (Model 4) is the inclusion of both context and individual-level effects. With Model 5 it is possible to model individual-level relationships and contextual effects on the relations.

Scientific psychology and hermeneutical psychology: Causal explanation and the meaning of human action

About 20 years ago it was fashionable to recognise that explanations of hu? man action in terms of agent's reasons, purposes, values etc. were of a dif? ferent logical order from causal explanations. Nowadays the fashion seems to be to recognise that they are bona fide examples of causal explanation. The debate about 'reasons and causes' has been around for centuries, at least since Kant and probably since Aristotle, although it has perhaps generated more confusion than illumination. It has alternatively been dis? missed as a purely verbal dispute, or treated as the most fundamental ques? tion of the philosophy of the human sciences. The present contribution to this debate is offered because most of the discussions of this question (at least since Kant) are vitiated by the presup? position of an inadequate philosophy of science. It is also offered because the question is not of mere philosophical interest: it has rather profound implications for the practise of social psychological sciences. Indeed the confusions of this debate have had a very definite and detrimental impact upon the practise of scientific social psychology. The issue is of course too large to encompass in the scope of a single ar? ticle. In the present article I hope to show that none of the arguments which purport to demonstrate that explanations of human action are non-causal in fact establish this, although they do illustrate important truths about the subject matter of psychological and social sciences. In a future article (Greenwood, 1986) I hope to explicate the sense(s) in which explanations of human action are causal. In these articles the primary concern is with a putative science of social psychology, insofar as this may be held to be closely co-ordinated with a science of human action: the implications apply