Abstract
In this paper I give a novel argument for this view that the AGENT concept has an externalist semantics. The argument argues the conclusion from two premises: first, that our first relationships to agents is through a subpersonal mechanism which requires for its function an agential proto-concept which refers directly; and second, that there is a continuity of reference between this proto-concept and the mature concept AGENT. I argue the first on the basis of results in the developmental psychology of social cognition. I argue the second on the basis of a process of elimination, by considering three possibilities for the relationship between the two concepts. On the basis of these two premises the conclusion is drawn that AGENT is a concept that refers directly. That has the following consequences for the philosophy of action: first, that “action” is not an appropriate term for reductive analysis, as the causal theory of action assumes; and second, that we should be looking to the appropriate empirical disciplines for an elucidation of the concept.
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Notes
Despite a relatively broad consensus regarding the externalist semantics of natural kind terms, there also exists a neo-descriptivist position that can accommodate the externalist critique of traditional descriptivism (e.g. Jackson 1998). I excuse myself from having to argue for externalism per se, however. I merely wish to show that AGENT specifically is most plausibly conceived as having an externalist semantics.
I follow this convention: words in caps refer to a concept (AGENT), words in double quotes refer to a linguistic term (“agent”), and when the same word is given without any apparatus I will mean the referent itself (agent).
These mirror objections anticipated by Shea and Bayne (2010) in their discussion of consciousness.
One might object at this point that attribution of goals requires attribution of goal-state representations that are distinct from the movement. But recent work in the neuroscience of action planning and perception appears to show that bodily movements are intrinsically coded as goal-directed, so that no additional goal-state representation would be needed (Rizzolatti and Sinigaglia 2010; cf. Butterfill and Apperly 2016).
It may be that other agents can themselves exist in another agent’s field. But that does not level the distinction between agents and objects: agents can have fields, whereas objects cannot.
This animation can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTNmLt7QX8E.
This does not mean that everything to which we attribute agency is in fact an agent. It may be that M has evolved such that it has a tendency to over-attribute agency. But that does not mean that the reference of AGENT could not be determined on the basis of the cases in which M attributes agency correctly. In any case, even our reaction to the Heider–Simmel animation is reliable in a derivative sense, given that it was an agent who produced this animation.
“Reference-borrowing” of this kind is mostly discussed with respect to social contexts where usage of a rigid designator is passed from user to user. (Consider my example of the proper name “Mars,” above.) But there is no reason why reference-borrowing could not occur for a concept that is used by different cognitive systems within a single mind. On this, see Recanati (2012).
In a forthcoming paper, Oisin Deery defends the view that freely willed actions constitute a natural kind in Boyd’s sense. Although Boyd’s account of natural kinds is independently attractive, I am much inspired by Deery’s approach.
That this is a theory about the meaning of “action” rather than an empirical hypothesis can be seen from the fact that causally deviant chains are used to object against the theory on the grounds that in these cases the putatively sufficient conditions for action are satisfied but we intuitively feel that an action has not taken place. If the theory was empirical, then this sort of objection would lack force.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Helen Steward and my colleagues at CEFISES for comments and advice on an earlier version of this paper. This work was funded by the Action Recherche Concertée “Free Will and Causality.”
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Sims, A. The essence of agency is discovered, not defined: a minimal mindreading argument. Philos Stud 176, 2011–2028 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-018-1108-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-018-1108-5