Theory of Action

Giuseppe Sciortino
The Structure of Social Action's «Missing» Chapter on Simmel: An Introduction
AND
Talcott Parsons
Georg Simmel and Ferdinand Tonnies: Social Relationships and the Element of Action
BOTH IN
Gabriele Pollini and Giuseppe Sciortino, eds. 2001
Parsons' The Structure of Social Action and Contemporary Debates
Milan: FrancoAngeli

In the present article I discuss, in confrontation with the most recent studies on Husserl's phenomenology of acting and willing, the taxonomy of action that is collected in the volume 'Wille und Handlung' of the Husserliana edition Studien zur Struktur des Bewussteins. In so doing, I first present Husserl's universal characterization of action (Handlung) as a volitional process (willentlicher Vorgang). Then, after clarifying what it means for a process to have a character of volitionality (Willentlichkeit), I illustrate the various types of actions, which Husserl distinguishes as 'straightforward' (schlicht) or 'deciding' (entscheidend), 'primary' (primär) or 'secondary' (sekundär), 'inner' (innere) or 'outer' (äußere), 'immediate' (unmittelbar) or mediate (mittelbar), 'simple' (einfach) or 'compound' (zusammengesetzt). Finally, I consider Husserl's discussion of the direction and foundation of action.

Der Beitrag erweitert den bisherigen Geltungsbereich der sozial- und kulturwissenschaftlichen Theorien der Fremdheit, indem er die theoretisch-analytische Grenzkategorie des maximal Fremden postuliert. Diese Kategorie soll in verschiedensten wissenschaftlichen Disziplinen dazu dienen, Interaktionen zu bestimmen, zu rekonstruieren und zu verstehen, an denen neben Menschen auch nonhumane Akteure beteiligt sind, etwa Haus- oder Wildtiere, Roboter und Außerirdische, aber auch Geister, Engel und Dämonen. Nach einem kurzen Überblick über die bisherige sozialwissenschaftliche Theoriebildung zur Fremdheit wird die neue Grenzkategorie theoretisch bestimmt. Anschließend demonstrieren drei praktische Beispiele (Delfine im heilpädagogischen Kontext, Außerirdische in der SETI-Forschung und Dämonen im katholischen Exorzismus) exemplarisch, in welchen wissenschaftlichen, religiösen, aber auch lebensweltlichen Kontexten die neue Kategorie analytisch von Bedeutung sein könnte. The article broadens the previous scope of social and cultural science theories of otherness by postulating the theoretic-analytic border category of the “strangest stranger”. This category shall serve various scientific disciplines to identify, reconstruct and understand interactions of humans and non-human actors, such as domesticated and wild animals, robots and aliens, or ghosts, angels and demons. Following a brief overview of contemporary social science theories of otherness the new border category of otherness will be theoretically specified. Subsequently, three practical examples (dolphins in a therapeutic context, aliens in SETI-research, and demons in catholic exorcism) will demonstrate scientific, religious but also secular contexts in which this new category is of analytical importance. Cet article élargit le domaine d’application des théories sociologiques et culturelles du concept d’étranger en introduisant la catégorie-limite analytico-théorique de l’étranger maximal. Cette catégorie est conçue pour permettre aux disciplines scientifiques les plus diverses de déterminer, reconstruire et comprendre des interactions impliquant non seulement des êtres humains, mais aussi des acteurs non humains tels que des animaux domestiques ou sauvages, des robots et des extra-terrestres ou encore des esprits, des anges et des démons. Après un rapide aperçu des théories sociologiques relatives au concept d’étranger, nous définissons théoriquement cette nouvelle catégorie-limite. À titre d’exemples, nous montrons ensuite à partir de trois cas concrets (des dauphins dans un contexte pédagogico-thérapeutique, des extra-terrestres dans les recherches du SETI ainsi que des démons dans l’exorcisme catholique) dans quels contextes scientifiques, religieux ou encore phénoménologiques cette nouvelle catégorie pourrait être pertinente du point de vue analytique.

There has been a resurgence of interest lately within philosophy of mind and action in the category of mental action. Against this background, the present paper aims to question the very possibility, or at least the theoretical significance, of teasing apart mental and bodily acts. After raising some doubts over the viability of various possible ways of drawing the mental act/bodily act distinction, the paper draws some lessons from debates over embodied cognition, which arguably further undermine the credibility of the distinction. The insignificance of the distinction is demonstrated in part by showing how the focus on 'inner' acts hampers fruitful discussion of Galen Strawson's skepticism of mental agency. Finally, the possibility is discussed that a distinction between covert and overt action should supplant the one between mental and bodily action.

Die Soziologie der Mitgliedschaft legt einen besonderen Anschnitt bei der Untersuchung der klassischen soziologischen Grundbegriffe Rolle, Status, Erwartungen und soziale Gruppe. Er besteht darin, dass sie im Hinblick auf die Strukturbestandteile sozialer Systeme zu untersuchen sind. Der Begriff der sozialen Gruppe wird in die Problemstufenordnung der Mitgliedschaftssoziologie Gesellschaft, Organisation und Interaktion eingeordnet. Sie ist jedoch keine eigene Ebene der Anordnung der Mitgliedschaft in sozialen Systemen auf der Problemstufenordnung. Gruppen bilden sich sozialsystem-, teilsystem- und organisationssystemtypisch. Sie können die sozialen Systeme, die Teilsysteme und das Organisationssystem auch übergreifen. Die Gruppensoziologie motivierte zu einer mitgliedschaftstheoretische Reinterpretation, da soziale Gruppen durch besondere Mitgliedschaftsbedingungen selbstdeterminiert sind.
Der Band führt in zentrale Grundbegriffe der Soziologie ein, die dem Soziologiestudenten eine Orientierung für die Beobachtung von Kommunikation und Mitgliedschaft bereitstellen. Er wertet soziologisches Wissen aus und führt die Kommunikation mit der Tradition des Faches fort.

El presente trabajo ofrece, por primera vez, un estudio completo y unitario de las funciones que la facultad del juicio desempeña en el sistema ético de Kant. Esta perspectiva permite resolver algunas aporías inherentes a la aplicación de la ley moral, así como advertir la relevancia que la especificidad de lo práctico posee en la filosofía crítica. Para ello, se comienza con el examen de la libertad en su sentido práctico-trascendental y se aclaran algunos conceptos básicos de la teoría kantiana de la acción, como los de causalidad, principio práctico y máxima. En este marco aparecen con su sentido propio las tres funciones básicas de la facultad práctica del juicio: la Típica en la constitución del objeto de la razón práctica y la doctrina sobre las categorías de la libertad; el enjuiciamiento de la máxima en el sistema de los deberes de virtud y la conciencia moral como la facultad práctica del juicio que se juzga a sí misma.

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Diese Arbeit bietet zum ersten Mal eine einheitliche und vollständige Darstellung der Rollen, die die Urteilskraft in Kants ethischem System spielt. Diese Perspektive ermöglicht es, einige Aporien der Anwendung des moralischen Gesetzes zu lösen und die Relevanz der Eigentümlichkeit des Praktischen für die Transzendentalphilosophie zu begreifen. Deshalb beginnt diese Arbeit mit der Analyse der Freiheit in ihrer transzendental-praktischen Bedeutung und mit der Erklärung einiger Grundbegriffe der kantischen Handlungstheorie, wie Kausalität, praktisches Prinzip und Maxime. In diesem Rahmen zeigen sich die drei grundlegenden Rollen der praktischen Urteilskraft in ihrem eigentlichen Sinne: die Typik in der Konstitution des Objekts der praktischen Vernunft und die Lehre über die Kategorien der Freiheit; die Beurteilung der Maxime im System der Tugendpflichten und das moralische Gewissen als die sich selbst richtende praktische Urteilskraft.

Our successful engagement with the world is plausibly underwritten by our sensitivity to affordances in our immediate environment. The considerable literature on affordances focuses almost exclusively on affordances for bodily actions such as gripping, walking or eating. I propose that we are also sensitive to affordances for mental actions such as attending, imagining and counting. My case for this ‘Mental Affordance Hypothesis’ is motivated by a series of examples in which our sensitivity to mental affordances mirrors our sensitivity to bodily affordances. Specifically, subjects perceive opportunities to perform a mental action and their doing so leads, under the right conditions, to the automatic preparation of that action. I conclude by sketching a mental affordance research program that would reinforce my case for the Mental Affordance Hypothesis and establish its ramifications for a number of debates across philosophy and psychology.

In this paper, I seek to show that one of the primary counterarguments to Robert Nozick’s theory undermines or displaces a necessary conception of individual responsibility, and therefore fails to convince. First, I define and describe the conventional theory of personal responsibility, elaborating particularly in neo-Kantian terms, and give an account of action. Second, I continue to develop a theory of personal responsibility, especially in the legal categories of ​mens rea ​ and actus reus, ​ and explain how it relates to justice, continuing to do so in a neo-Kantian line of thought and give a detailed account of intention. Finally, I elaborate on Robert Nozick’s political theory, and the objections to it, concluding that they fail to successfully refute the concept of personal responsibility entailed by his theory that justice requires. I conclude this is due to the uniquely human nature of moral accountability, and therefore, the uniquely human nature of justice.

The aim of this chapter is to discuss the central role of the notion of " habit " (Gewohnheit) in Hegel's theory of " embodiment " (Verleiblichung) and to show that the philosophical outcome of the Anthropology is that habit, understood as a sensorimotor life form, is not only an enabling condition for there to be mindedness, but is more strongly an ontological constitutive condition of all its levels of manifestation. Moreover, I will argue that Hegel's approach somehow makes a model of embodied cognition available which offers a unified account of the three main senses of embodiment understood as both a physiological, a functional, and a phenomenological process. In this sense Hegel's approach to habit can make a useful contribution to the contemporary debate on embodiment in philosophy of mind, the cognitive sciences, and action theory. For a long time habit in 20th century philosophy and science has been mostly read in a negative way, identified with mechanical and repetitive routine.  The reconstruction of Hegel’s approach is particularly relevant here and can fruitfully contribute to this discussion, since it offers us not only a model that assigns to habit a positive constitutive role in the formation of embodied human mindedness but which also overcomes the dualism between habitual motor routine and intentional activities that is prevalent nowadays in the cognitive sciences and in action theory, and allows for some sense of natural agency as belonging to animal life. Furthermore, Hegel’s approach cuts across the great divide between associationist and holistic approaches to habit that has for a long time dominated the philosophical debate on habit and still shapes the current opposition between classical cognitive science and embodied cognitive science.

El propósito de este texto es explorar la conjetura de Tom Ford según la cual la manera accidentalista de concebir las acciones intencionales es errada. Para este se pretende especificar cuáles propuestas en el ámbito de la filosofía de la acción se inscriben en estos modos de concebir la acción y extender el esquema expuesto por Ford de manera que se incluyan las acciones institucionales y las colectivas. Para esto me ocuparé de las tres distinciones: entre acciones intencionales y no intencionales, entre institucionales y no institucionales y entre individuales y colectivas. En cada uno de estos niveles expondré las diversas concepciones que pueden encontrarse y haré una valoración de cada una de ellas.

This article questions the theoretical background to Jean-Paul Sartre’s thesis, formulated in Anti-Semite and Jew, that antisemitism is “a free and total choice of oneself” by arguing against interpretations that emphasize the everyday meaning of the words “choice” and “responsibility”, which leads some to invoke Sartre as a key witness for the total responsibility of actors for their antisemitic attitudes. On the contrary, this article argues that antisemitism, if one takes Sartre’s decisionist theory of freedom seriously, mutates into a blind, inexplicable, and incomprehensible fate, and that the alleged total responsibility for antisemitism as a mode of “bad faith” (mauvaise foi) turns into total unfreedom.

Il fine di questo lavoro è di evidenziare alcuni tratti del percorso «culturale» di Alfred Schutz . Secondo il sociologo austriaco le scienze sociali sono scienze della cultura perché il mondo è dotato di senso. Egli pone le basi per una teoria fenomenologica della cultura sui generis, un abbozzo di sociologia dei processi culturali , una sorta di «grammatica invariante» sotto forma di una rigorosa teoria di base per definire le strutture significative dell’esperienza attraverso le quali si articolano i fenomeni socio-culturali.

Contra aquellas lecturas formalistas de la filosofía práctica de Kant, se asume una lectura de su propuesta ética a partir del concepto de máxima. Al referirnos a la moral kantiana como una moral de máximas, se postula un modelo específico dela acción racional, el cual posibilita la aplicación de la ley moral. La máxima, dentro de este modelo de acción, sirve como principio práctico subjetivo de la acción a partir del cual se aplica el imperativo categórico, como su principio práctico objetivo. Esto implica que la propuesta de Kant no excluye el contexto práctico en el que se quiere realizar la acción, así como tampoco la situación específica del agente que la pretende realizar.

This paper aims to present some shared aspects of Kant's and Hegel's conception of intentional action. Such aspects, I claim, form the basis of other well known divergences between them. Since Kant's and Hegel's conception of intentional action have been studied by many scholars in the last years, I will focus just on one point: The differences between kantian and hege-lian approches and contemporary causal-reductive framework. Finnaly, I will suggest that the most important difference between Kant and Hegel in practical philosophy can be better understood in this context.

The question of freedom is recurrent in the theory of habitus. In this paper I propose that the notion of freedom is an essential and necessary component for the coherence of the analyses which mobilize habitus both in terms of their theoretical articulation and in terms of their grounding in empirical reality. This argument can seem surprising considering that the theory of habitus has often been accused of being deterministic. Yet I show that, from an epistemological point of view, habitus theory is not deterministic. Bourdieu’s treatment of this concept implies at least three principles that exclude determinism: (1) the production of an infinite number of behaviors from a limited number of principles, (2) permanent mutation, and (3) the intensive and extensive limits of sociological understanding. After identifying and describing these principles, I show the reason for their incompatibility with a deterministic perspective and consider their implications for the corresponding model of action. I illustrate this analysis by a discussion of Loïc Wacquant’s carnal sociology of the pugilistic universe which reveals why it is essential to understand and explain the relation between habitus and freedom.

This paper proposes a specific approach to understanding the nature of technology that encompasses the entire field of technological praxis, from the making of primitive tools to using the Internet. In that approach, technology is a specific form of human agency that yields to (an imperfect) realization of human control over a technological situation—that is, a situation not governed to an end by natural constraints but by specific human aims. The components of such technological situations are a given collection of natural or artificial beings, humans, human aims, and situation-bound tools. By performing technological situation analysis, the essential form of tool making, the complex system of relationships between science and technology, technological practices with and without machines, the finiteness or imperfectness of any technology, and engineering (i.e., the possibility of the creation of technological situations) can be considered. For a better characterization of the approach to technology, the paper also presents a comparison of other philosophies of technology. Following Feenberg’s comparative analysis, the so-called fundamental question of the philosophy of technology is formulated, its two sides are identified, and it is applied for clarification of our position within philosophy of technology. In our approach, all human praxis can be considered to be technological; more precisely, every human activity has a technological aspect or dimension

Abstract

The paper aims at positioning two branches of the 20th century’s non-representationalist paradigms of thought, namely, pragmatic naturalism and philosophical hermeneutics, by discussing the pertaining views of John Dewey and Justus Buchler, and in turn, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Martin Heidegger. The first section examines Dewey’s views on practice, cognition, and truth, and in turn, Buchler’s theory of judgment as an attempt at improving on Dewey’s theory of experience. Since it is primarily Buchler’s approach that shows considerable affinity to that of Gadamer, the second section proceeds by comparing their respective views on scientific inquiry and art. In order to map in more depth the similarities and differences between their approaches, a short historical genealogy of their versions of non-representationalism follows, as well as a discussion of the two pivotal points of such a genealogy, namely, Heidegger’s idea of ontological difference and the Buchlerian notion of nature. These considerations lead to different conceptions of spatio-temporal relations as well as to different senses of the notion of “event.” For that reason, the third section begins with a short discussion of a specific linguistic phenomenon, namely, the middle voice, by means of which some basic features of hermeneutic philosophy pertaining to the mentioned notions are to be highlighted. The paper concludes with summing up the common and different traits of pragmatic naturalism and philosophical hermeneutics, especially with respect to the issues of truth, justification, event, and interpretation.

The following article engages the problem of agency in actor-network theory, working towards a foundation for an ANT-based theory of action. The problem of agency in contemporary sociology concerns questions about material objects in social interactions. The author analyses two current strategies of ascribing agency to material agents. The first strategy uses the ‘aquarium model’, allowing us to treat agency as a result of human interaction with the material environment. Material objects are not actors, as they do not have intentionality. Consequently, human and non-human agencies are fundamentally different. This strategy does not allow one to analyze the joint action of people and things, since either the environment or the actors possess agency. The second strategy, peculiar to ANT, is based on denying the ontological status of both humans and non-humans, transferring it to their relations. Agency is understood as the distributed effect of interaction between heterogeneous agents. This allows one to consider hybrid action of human and non-human. However, the actor-network conception of agency encounters some obstacles that stem from its radical relationism. The author analyses Graham Harman’s critique of the philosophical assumptions of ANT and explicates the potential pitfalls of the conception of distributed agency. Firstly, there is the problem of the mechanics of ascribing agency, since - by denying any essential differences between humans and non-humans - any kings of relations have to be described in the modality of ‘oughtness’. Secondly, there is a problem with the mechanics of distributing agency. This problem is a consequence of the inherently mediated character of action, manifesting itself in the inability to evaluate the relevance of any given object in interaction prior to an observation. In the final sections, the article discusses the solution to those problems as suggested by Bruno Latour in his inquiry of the modes of existence, tracing the directions of future work on an actor-network theory of action.

Статья посвящена проблеме агентности в акторно-сетевой теории в перспективе создания новой теории действия на основе ANT. Проблема способности к действию в современной социологии связана с вопросом о статусе материальных объектов в социальных взаимодействиях. В статье анализируются две стратегии приписывания агентности материальным объектам. Первая стратегия использует «модель аквариума», в которой способность к действию рассматривается как результат взаимодействия человеческих акторов с материальной средой. Материальные объекты не являются акторами, потому что у них нет интенциональности; следовательно, агентность людей и не-человеков сущностно отличается. В рамках этой стратегии невозможно анализировать совместное действие людей и вещей, т.к. агентность оказывается либо на стороне среды, либо на стороне акторов. Вторая стратегия, присущая ANT, основана на лишении онтологического статуса как людей, так и не-человеков и переносе его на отношения между ними. Агентность понимается как эффект взаимодействия разнородных акторов и является распределенной в сети отношений, что позволяет рассматривать гибридное со-действие человеческого и не-человеческого. Однако акторно-сетевая концептуализация агентности сталкивается с рядом препятствий, связанных с ее радикальной реляционистской позицией. В статье анализируется критика Г. Харманом философских оснований ANT, на основе чего формулируются потенциальные проблемы концепции распределенной агентности. Во-первых, существует проблема механизма приписывания агентности, поскольку ввиду нивелирования сущностных различий между людьми и не-человеками любые отношения начинают описываться в модальности долженствования. Во-вторых, есть проблема механизма распределения агентности, связанная с невозможностью вынести суждения о релевантности тех или иных объектов до наблюдения, т.к. действие рассматривается как изначально опосредованное. В заключение обсуждается решение, предложенное Латуром в проекте исследования модусов существования, и обозначаются перспективы дальнейшей работы над созданием акторно-сетевой теории действия.

The main aim of the conference is to present the new approaches to the problem of consciousness and rationality and to provide an effective dialog between disciplines and the different fields of philosophy, which can be fruitful for the solving of general problems of cognition. There are many reasons why the question of the conjunction between self-consciousness and rationality is important. The main and general is the problem of the compatibility between thoughts and acts. Still the following questions need to be answered: Is there a relationship between pre-reflectivity and rational thinking? Is phenomenal subjectivity non-representational? How is pre-reflectivity to implement in cognitive-architecture? Does phenomenal consciousness have a priority over other mental states and actions? The notions of consciousness and rationality have their own long philosophical history of use. That is why the conference will start with the block of presentations devoted to the question of the problem of consciousness and rationality in the light of the classic philosophical theories especially with reference to modern philosophy. In the following blocks the core of presentations will be shifted to contemporary conceptions combining philosophy and cognitive science.

Cet article est consacré à la présentation de certains éléments d'une théorisation en cours, concernant l'action didactique, conçue comme action conjointe centrée sur le savoir objet des transactions didactiques. L'objectif essentiel de cet article est donc théorique. Il donne à voir un ...

There is stock argument against libertarianism: that the indeterminism it postulates makes human choice a matter of chance and this is no better as a basis for practical rationality and moral responsibility than the most rigid determinism.  I suggest that a similar problem arises on deterministic assumptions: although human choice is no longer a matter of mere chance, it remains arbitrary since whatever explains a person’s choice to act on the reasons for an action rather than those against, it is not a matter of reasons that were reasons FOR THAT PERSON.  The explanatory gap is closed in the wrong way for the impression of sheer arbitrariness to be cancelled.  I discuss (via a digression on F. H. Bradley) whether Davidson’s ‘anomalous monism’ would, if correct, necessitate any modification to this conclusion.  I also ask how the problem addressed in this paper relates to Galen Strawson’s rejection of the possibility of complete autonomy or self-determination.

http://ethiquepublique.revues.org/2888
Le cognitivisme localise les phénomènes mentaux (conscience, connaissances, émotions, etc.) dans le cerveauesprit dans lequel fonctionne une compétence (= savoir agir) qui mobilise ou transfère d'une situation à l'autre les savoirs qui y sont emmagasinés. Dans cette perspective, une personne compétente se comprend par le cumul de savoirs et de compétences décontextualisés. Par contraste, la perspective de l'énaction localise les phénomènes mentaux dans l'entièreté de la personne en action et en situation (PAS), .i.e. dans l'agir réel de la personne en contexte réel. La compétence se comprend alors comme un agir réel qui est à la fois corporel, intentionnel, mental, spatio-temporel, situationnel et dont les fonctions essentielles sont : se disposer, se situer, se positionner et (se) réaliser. Nous argumentons que l'agir réel, qui fonctionne et se développe en situation, traduit mieux ce qu'est une personne compétente que les savoirs et compétences qu'elle accumulerait hors situation. Abstract Cognitivism locates mental phenomena (consciousness, knowledge, emotions, etc.) in the brainmind, where competence (knowing how to act) is understood to function by mobilizing or transferring, from one situation to another, the knowledge stored therein. From this perspective, a person is deemed competent by virtue of the knowledge and decontextualized competences he/she has accumulated. By contrast, the perspective offered by enaction locates mental phenomena within the totality of the person in action and in situation (PAS), that is, in the person acting in a real context. Here, competence is understood as real action, which is at once physical, intentional, mental, spatio-temporal, and situational, and the main functions of which are: to dispose oneself, to situate oneself, to position oneself, and to realize (oneself). We argue that real action, which functions and develops in situation, better captures the essence of a competent person than a list of the knowledge and competences he/she has accumulated outside of any concrete situation.

This essay critically analyses the arguments developed by the Italian Constitutional Court in the famous “Cappato case”, showing that some of those arguments are inconclusive or mutually inconsistent. The essay argues that these argumentative difficulties are due, on one hand, to the fact that the Constitutional Court remains implicitly tied to the distinction between doing and allowing harm, and, on the other, to the fact that this choice is never explicitly justified. In the last paragraphs the author instead contends that this distinction does not apply to the issues under consideration: in particular, it is argued that the interruption of medical treatments is a case of doing harm (killing). Therefore, if one thinks that the interruption of treatments (at the patient’s request) is morally correct, there is no reason to prohibit active euthanasia and assisted suicide (always at the patient’s request) – or, better, such reasons, if any, should be sought elsewhere than in the moral difference between doing and allowing harm.

Investigate the development of temporal markers as used by 2 to 4 years-old children in a task of free play action. On the basis of a free-play using little wooden animais, a categorisation of children's actions points out a difference between temporal markers of action and coordination means-goal. Frequencies analyses shows that temporal markers are distinguished from coordination from a genetic and a structural point of view. The development of temporal markers is more precocious than the developement of coordination. Factorial analysis confirms and enlarges the difference between coordination and temporal markers, suggesting a dual-model to understand the functionning of action. Action is at the crossroad of a temporal frame (form) and the procedures (contents) the temporal functions of which within action are different and complementary.