Garadja, Elena
(2024)
Action as Learnable Control.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
This dissertation examines the remnants of Cartesian influence in contemporary action theory in order to motivate a different account of the concept "action". The Cartesian influence comes in three separate strands: (1) Immunity from Ignorance/No False Negatives rule. Contemporary action theory remains committed to the idea that actions are paradigmatically conscious, so that it is impossible for an agent to think she is not x-ing while x-ing. I argue that this is at odds with the fact that (i) we do many things unconsciously and (ii) there are certain actions that we can perform well only insofar as we remain deeply unconscious of them. (2) Immunity from Error/No False Positives. Contemporary action theory remains committed to the view that it's not possible for an agent to have a sincere, false belief of the form "I am x-ing". Specifically, I locate this no false positives rule in Anscombe's notion of "practical knowledge". I show, by way of examples, that false positives are possible and that a theoretical account is needed to make the difference between false positives and true positives explicit. (3) Dualism. While contemporary action theory shuns Substance Dualism, it retains distinctions that are dualist in the broader sense of the term. This blocks a satisfactory (nonmysterious) account of action as an object in the world. I propose to understand action as learnable control. More specifically, action is an embodied attitude with modal properties: it has an associated degree of control, which can be improved through learning (both symbolically mediated learning and brute force/"machine learning"). As well as escaping Cartesianism, a central motivation for the critique and the positive account is to articulate an action theory that would be a better fit for moral theory in allowing us to hold agents responsible for a greater variety of actions, but also do so in a more nuanced way. In the last chapter of the dissertation I make the call for reflexive equilibrium between moral theory and action theory, drawing out some of the implications of the learnable control theory of action in holding one another responsible.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
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| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
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| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
19 December 2024 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
22 November 2024 |
| Approval Date: |
19 December 2024 |
| Submission Date: |
13 December 2024 |
| Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
| Number of Pages: |
199 |
| 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, Moral Theory, Responsibility, Control, Learning, Blame, Agent, Self-Knowledge, Transparency, Incorrigibility, Consciousness, Unconscious, Anscombe, Davidson, Hegel |
| Date Deposited: |
19 Dec 2024 21:08 |
| Last Modified: |
19 Dec 2024 21:08 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/47269 |
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