Automaticity and the Economization of Actions

Abstract

This chapter is an interpretation of Kotarbiński’s ideas on automatic actions, that is, the ones which are taken to be performed without thinking. The phenomenon of automaticity is interpreted in the praxiological context of the economization of actions. To show how Kotarbiński’s intuitions about automaticity are empirically anchored, the interpretation is supplemented by a survey of selected cognitive-psychological research on habits and skilled performance. The chapter also investigates the relation between automaticity and the problem of know-how in Kotarbiński’s theorizing and, lastly, shows the most important difficulties posed by automatic actions in the context of causalism and intentionality in the philosophy of action.