Knowledge and agential control: a non-reductive approach

Abstract

Agential control has, with good reason, emerged as an important topic in the philosophy of action. This paper considers what reflection on control can tell us about some fundamental assumptions in the philosophy of action, and specifically about the role of the mind in action. I begin by arguing that some currently popular accounts of control (in terms either of the reliable execution of intentions, or of guidance by states of knowledge-how fail). It is not a new observation that the so-called “standard story” of action treats our actions as “composites” of mental and non-mental components. But it is far from clear that agential control can fit into such a model: control, after all, is both a matter of action execution, and an exercise of mentality, or practical intelligence. Accordingly, I propose an alternative approach that resists attempts to analyse control in such terms.