Dancy Jonathan - Philosophy of Action

1. Chapter 28
2. Chapter 31

Each volume in this outstanding series provides an authoritative and comprehensive collection of the essential primary readings from philosophys main fields of study. Designed to complement the Blackwell Companions to Philosophy series, each volume represents an unparalleled resource in its own right, and will provide the ideal platform for course use.

1. Cottingham: Western Philosophy: An Anthology (second edition)
2. Cahoone: From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology (expanded second edition)
3. LaFollette: Ethics in Practice: An Anthology (third edition)
4. Goodin and Pettit: Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology (second edition)
5. Eze: African Philosophy: An Anthology
6. McNeill and Feldman: Continental Philosophy: An Anthology
7. Kim and Sosa: Metaphysics: An Anthology
8. Lycan and Prinz: Mind and Cognition: An Anthology (third edition)
9. Kuhse and Singer: Bioethics: An Anthology (second edition)
10. Cummins and Cummins: Minds, Brains, and Computers The Foundations of Cognitive Science: An Anthology
11. Sosa, Kim, Fantl, and McGrath: Epistemology: An Anthology (second edition)
12. Kearney and Rasmussen: Continental Aesthetics Romanticism to Postmodernism: An Anthology
13. Martinich and Sosa: Analytic Philosophy: An Anthology
14. Jacquette: Philosophy of Logic: An Anthology
15. Jacquette: Philosophy of Mathematics: An Anthology
16. Harris, Pratt, and Waters: American Philosophies: An Anthology
17. Emmanuel and Goold: Modern Philosophy From Descartes to Nietzsche: An Anthology
18. Scharff and Dusek: Philosophy of Technology The Technological Condition: An Anthology
19. Light and Rolston: Environmental Ethics: An Anthology
20. Taliaferro and Griffiths: Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology
21. Lamarque and Olsen: Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art The Analytic Tradition: An Anthology
22. John and Lopes: Philosophy of Literature Contemporary and Classic Readings: An Anthology
23. Cudd and Andreasen: Feminist Theory: A Philosophical Anthology
24. Carroll and Choi: Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures: An Anthology
25. Lange: Philosophy of Science: An Anthology
26. Shafer-Landau and Cuneo: Foundations of Ethics: An Anthology
27. Curren: Philosophy of Education: An Anthology
28. Shafer-Landau: Ethical Theory: An Anthology
29. Cahn and Meskin: Aesthetics: A Comprehensive Anthology
30. McGrew, Alspector-Kelly, and Allhoff: The Philosophy of Science: An Historical Anthology
31. May: Philosophy of Law: Classic and Contemporary Readings
32. Rosenberg and Arp: Philosophy of Biology: An Anthology
33. Kim, Korman, and Sosa: Metaphysics: An Anthology (second edition)
34. Martinich and Sosa: Analytic Philosophy: An Anthology (second edition)
35. Shafer-Landau: Ethical Theory: An Anthology (second edition)
36. Hetherington: Metaphysics and Epistemology: A Guided Anthology
37. Scharff and Dusek: Philosophy of Technology The Technological Condition: An Anthology (second edition)
38. LaFollette: Ethics in Practice: An Anthology (fourth edition)
39. Davis: Contemporary Moral and Social Issues: An Introduction through Original Fiction, Discussion, and Readings
40. Dancy and Sandis: Philosophy of Action: An Anthology

Edited by

Jonathan Dancy and Constantine Sandis

This edition first published 2015
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Fred Dretske and Jonathan Lowe died while this volume was in preparation.
It is dedicated to them.

Though all the great philosophers since Plato have included accounts of action in their philosophical systems, the philosophy of action only began to be conceived of as a discrete topic in philosophy towards the end of the last century. It is only recently that we have begun to find graduate classes devoted entirely to philosophy of action. The work of Wittgenstein has been seminal in this change, and with that in mind we have placed some especially influential passages from this work in , outside the six parts that follow. With this exception, the material in the volume is divided thematically rather than chronologically (though the various parts have been ordered chronologically where doing so makes sense).

While appreciating that readers often dip into anthologies with very specific purposes, we have grouped the papers we reprint here (all except John McDowells chapter are already in print) into six parts. These are to some extent artificial, and certainly could have been done differently, but our aim was to offer a structure that might help in the design and development of a course on recent philosophy of action. That structure itself has led to some classic papers failing to find a place; most of them are mentioned in the Further Reading at the end of the introduction to each part.