Schulz, Benjamin
(2019)
Practical Knowledge Within Our Means.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
Is the will a capacity for knowledge? I argue that it is. More precisely, I argue that we possess a distinctive kind of ungrounded self-knowledge of our intentional actions. After defending this epistemological claim against putative counterexamples, I offer a metaphysical argument in support of its truth. On my view, the possession of such knowledge follows from the nature of an intentional action, from what an intentional action is. To show why this is so, I develop and defend an account of intentional action upon which such actions essentially involve our capacity for practical reasoning. By my lights, when we act intentionally, we are always in a position to offer a certain type of reasons explanation of what we are up to. It turns out, though, to be a condition on the possibility of such explanations that we also have knowledge of our reasons, and this in turn presupposes that we know what we are intentionally doing. In this way, I suggest, we can see why there is a necessary link between intentional action and knowledge. Aside from explaining how such a link holds between agency and cognition, I use this picture of intentional action to illuminate other issues in contemporary practical philosophy. First, I show how this picture helps to herald a distinctive rapprochement between so-called ‘causalists’ and ‘anti-causalists’ about reasons explanations. Second, I show how it lets us better grasp what G.E.M. Anscombe had in mind when she gnomically described our knowledge of our intentional actions as ‘the cause of what it understands’.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
|
| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
|
| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
26 June 2019 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
11 September 2018 |
| Approval Date: |
26 June 2019 |
| Submission Date: |
30 September 2018 |
| Access Restriction: |
5 year -- Restrict access to University of Pittsburgh for a period of 5 years. |
| Number of Pages: |
163 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Philosophy |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
action, practical knowledge, practical reasoning, causal explanation |
| Date Deposited: |
26 Jun 2019 20:16 |
| Last Modified: |
26 Jun 2019 20:16 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/35373 |
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