Philosophy of Action

This course will be devoted to recovering an understanding of practical reason that was developed over the course of a long tradition in practical philosophy, extending from Plato and Aristotle up through Kant. The primary text will be Kant’s Critique of practical Reason, but readings will also include selections from Kant’s other writings and from recent literature relating to practical reason. The main aim will be to understand the idea that reason has a practical application, which constitutes a capacity for a distinct type of knowledge, practical knowledge, whose object is the good. Topics that will need to be investigated include (on the epistemological side) reason and rational knowledge and the difference between theoretical and practical knowledge, and (on the psychological side) perception and desire, and feeling and action.

In this seminar we will address questions about the nature of reasons and normativity, with a particular eye toward the difficulties philosophy has encountered in attempting to locate our responsiveness to normativity in the causual order. Readings will be drawn from a manuscript in progress as well as a range of work in philosophy of mind and philosophy of action, skewing toward contemporary sources. (III)

An action, according to Aristotle, can be a logical conclusion of thinking. We shall try to understand this claim by reading book 7 of Nicomachean Ethics (we shall discuss Aristotle on practical syllogism, the weakness of the will, the difference between practical and theoretical). We shall proceed to consider the place of these ideas in Kant's First and Second Critique.We shall look at commentaries on the relevant texts by E. Anscombe, J. Dancy, S. Engstrom, J. McDowell, A.W. Price, S. Rodl, and others.