Reasons, practical reason, and practical reasoning

The concepts of reasons as supporting elements, of practical reason as a capacity, and of practical reasoning as a process are central in the theory of action. This paper provides a brief account of each. Several kinds of reason for action are distinguished. Practical reason is characterized both as a capacity whose exercise is largely constituted by a kind of responsiveness to reasons and as governed by certain normative principles; and practical reasoning is described as a kind of mental process in which reasons figure as premises and, from those premises, a practical conclusion is drawn. Much of the paper undertakes two related tasks: to distinguish the main kinds of practical reasoning and the associated criteria of assessment and to formulate some important substantive principles of practical reason. These principles yield criteria of several sorts: logical, inferential, epistemic, and material. On the theory presented, although any (non‐basic) intentional act can be grounded in practical reasoning, the same acts can be performed for the relevant reason(s) without being so grounded, and in either case their rationality depends on adequate support by the reason(s). One kind of reason is commonly thought to be captured by Kantian hypothetical imperatives. The final sections explore what constitutes a hypothetical imperative and what other principles are needed to account for practical rationality. A major conclusion is that in the domain of practical reason, if there are no categorical imperatives, there are no hypothetical imperatives either.     

Sequence learning by action,observation and action observation

The serial reaction time (SRT) task was used to compare learning of a complex sequence by action (participants responded to sequential stimuli), by observation (participants watched but did not respond to sequential stimuli), and by action‐observation (participants watched an expert model responding to sequential stimuli). Each of these groups was compared with an untrained control group. Experiment 1 indicated that both observation and action‐observation were sufficient to support learning of a 12‐item second‐order conditional (SOC) sequence. Experiment 2 confirmed these findings, and showed that, as indexed by reaction time (RT), the extent of learning by observation and by action‐observation was comparable to that of action‐based learning. Using a recognition test, Experiment 2 and 3 also provided evidence that, whereas learning by stimulus observation was explicit, learning by action‐observation was implicit. These findings are consistent with a connection between motor systems and implicit learning, but do not support the hypothesis that overt action is necessary for implicit learning.     

Time, action, and consciousness

Time plays a central role in consciousness, at different levels and in different aspects of information processing. Subliminal perception experiments demonstrate that stimuli presented too briefly to enter conscious awareness are nevertheless processed to some extent. Implicit learning, implicit memory, and conditioning studies suggest that the extent to which memory traces are available for verbal report and for cognitive control is likewise dependent on the time available for processing during acquisition. Differences in the time available for processing also determine not only the extent to which one becomes conscious of action, but also provides the basis for making attributions of authorship to experienced acts. In this paper, we offer a brief overview of these different findings and suggest that they can all be understood based on the fact that consciousness takes time. From this perspective, the availability of representations to conscious awareness depends on the quality of these representations - the extent to which they are strong, stable in time, and distinctive. High-quality representations occur when processes of global competition have had sufficient time to operate so as to make the system settle into the best possible interpretation of the input. Such processes implement global constraint satisfaction and critically depend on reentrant processing, through which representations can be further enriched by high-level constraints. We discuss these ideas in light of current theories of consciousness, emphasizing the fact that consciousness should be viewed as a process rather than as a static property associated with some states and not with others.     

Assertion,knowledge, and action

We argue against the knowledge rule of assertion, and in favour of integrating the account of assertion more tightly with our best theories of evidence and action. We think that the knowledge rule has an incredible consequence when it comes to practical deliberation, that it can be right for a person to do something that she can’t properly assert she can do. We develop some vignettes that show how this is possible, and how odd this consequence is. We then argue that these vignettes point towards alternate rules that tie assertion to sufficient evidence-responsiveness or to proper action. These rules have many of the virtues that are commonly claimed for the knowledge rule, but lack the knowledge rule’s problematic consequences when it comes to assertions about what to do.     

Narrative identity,practical identity and ethical subjectivity

The narrative approach to identity has developed as a sophisticated philosophical response to the complexities and ambiguities of the human, lived situation, and is not – as has been naively suggested elsewhere – the imposition of a generic form of life or the attempt to imitate a fictional character. I argue that the narrative model of identity provides a more inclusive and exhaustive account of identity than the causal models employed by mainstream theorists of personal identity. Importantly for ethical subjectivity, the narrative model gives a central and irreducible role to the first-person perspective. I will draw the connection between narrative identity and ethical subjectivity by way of an exposition of work by Paul Ricoeur and Marya Schechtman, and a brief consideration of Korsgaard’s work on practical identity and normative ethics. I argue that the first-person perspective – the reflective structure of human consciousness – arises from human embodiment, and therefore the model of identity required of embodied consciousness is more complex and irreducibly first-personal than that provided in a causal account. What is required is a self-constitution model of identity: a narrative model of identity.     

Cognition, action, and object manipulation

Although psychology is the science of mental life and behavior, little attention has been paid to the means by which mental life is translated into behavior. One domain in which links between cognition and action have been explored is the manipulation of objects. This article reviews psychological research on this topic, with special emphasis on the tendency to grasp objects differently depending on what one plans to do with the objects. Such differential grasping has been demonstrated in a wide range of object manipulation tasks, including grasping an object in a way that reveals anticipation of the object's future orientation, height, and required placement precision. Differential grasping has also been demonstrated in a wide range of behaviors, including 1-hand grasps, 2-hand grasps, walking, and transferring objects from place to place as well as from person to person. The populations in which the tendency has been shown are also diverse, including nonhuman primates as well as human adults, children, and babies. The tendency is compromised in a variety of clinical populations and in children of a surprisingly advanced age. Verbal working memory is compromised as well if words are memorized while object manipulation tasks are performed; the recency portion of the serial position curve is reduced in this circumstance. In general, the research reviewed here points to rich connections between cognition and action as revealed through the study of object manipulation. Other implications concern affordances, Donders' law, naturalistic observation, and the teaching of psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Politics,democratic action,and solidarity

I agree with the critique of rationalism proposed by Spinosa, Flores, and Dreyfus in ‘Disclosing New Worlds’. Today the defence of democracy requires us to understand that allegiance to democratic institutions can only rest on identification with the practices, the language‐games, and the discourses which are constitutive of the democratic ‘form of life’, and that it is not a question of providing them with a rational justification. My comments are developed in two directions. First, as a development of their thesis concerning the centrality of practices, I suggest that in order to grasp the present crisis of democratic forms of individuality we can learn a lot from Nietzsche's analysis of ‘nihilism’. Second, I point to a dimension which I consider to be missing in the perspective put forward in the article. It fails to take account of the fact that the constitution of a ‘we’ always requires the determination of a ‘them’. This, in my view, has important consequences for the relation between solidarity and politics. I conclude by arguing for the need to introduce an agonistic element in the view of solidarity, and for the crucial role of the category of the adversary in a pluralist democracy whose aim is to transform antagonism into agonism.     

The influence of action observation on action execution: Dissociating the contribution of action on perception,perception on action,and resolving conflict

For more than 15 years, motor interference paradigms have been used to investigate the influence of action observation on action execution. Most research on so-called automatic imitation has focused on variables that play a modulating role or investigated potential confounding factors. Interestingly, furthermore, a number of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have tried to shed light on the functional mechanisms and neural correlates involved in imitation inhibition. However, these fMRI studies, presumably due to poor temporal resolution, have primarily focused on high-level processes and have neglected the potential role of low-level motor and perceptual processes. In the current EEG study, we therefore aimed to disentangle the influence of low-level perceptual and motoric mechanisms from high-level cognitive mechanisms. We focused on potential congruency differences in the visual N190 ? a component related to the processing of biological motion, the Readiness Potential ? a component related to motor preparation, and the high-level P3 component. Interestingly, we detected congruency effects in each of these components, suggesting that the interference effect in an automatic imitation paradigm is not only related to high-level processes such as self-other distinction but also to more low-level influences of perception on action and action on perception. Moreover, we documented relationships of the neural effects with (autistic) behavior.     

Nietzsche,intention, action

Nietzsche sometimes writes as if we are not in control—at least not in conscious control—of our actions. He seems to suggest that what we actually do is independent of our intentions. It turns out, though, that his understanding of both intention and action differs radically from most contemporary treatments of the issue. In particular, he denies that our actions are caused by their intentions, whose role is hermeneutical in a sense that this essay develops. How then is responsibility to be assigned, since its moral variety, at least, depends, on several views, on the intention with which an action is performed? Nietzsche, of course, is not interested in making attributions of moral responsibility. Still, his views on the relationship between an individual action, its intention, other actions by its agent, and the agent's character, as this essay presents them, provide a reasonable account of action generally and a different, broader account of responsibility for oneself.     

Embodiment, spatial categorisation and action

Despite the subjective experience of a continuous and coherent external world, we will argue that the perception and categorisation of visual space is constrained by the spatial resolution of the sensory systems but also and above all, by the pre-reflective representations of the body in action. Recent empirical data in cognitive neurosciences will be presented that suggest that multidimensional categorisation of perceptual space depends on body representations at both an experiential and a functional level. Results will also be resumed that show that representations of the body in action are pre-reflective in nature as only some aspects of the pre-reflective states can be consciously experienced. Finally, a neuro-cognitive model based on the integration of afferent and efferent information will be described, which suggests that action simulation and associated predicted sensory consequences may represent the underlying principle that enables pre-reflective representations of the body for space categorisation and selection for action.     

Nonconsensual neurocorrectives,bypassing, and free action

Philosophical Studies - As neuroscience progresses, we will not only gain a better understanding of how our brains work, but also a better understanding of how to modify them, and as a result, our...