ABSTRACT
Economics is often defined as the science of choice or human action. But choice and action are essentially mental phenomena that cannot be understood fully without considering the nature of mind itself. Philosophers typically take choice to involve beliefs, desires, intentions, and arguably even free will. And they often distinguish actions from mere bodily movements by holding that the former, but not the latter, are in some sense deliberate and as such involve mental processing. Although philosophers have long concerned themselves with the connections between choice, action, and the mind, economists have tended to steer clear of what might appear to be an a priori debate, either implicitly adopting a “black box” theory of mind or taking an extreme behaviorist orientation and neglecting the role of the mental entirely. At the same time, philosophers thinking about choice and action have tended not to dirty their hands with the real-world applications in which economists are specialized, whether theoretical or empirical. This volume brings economists and philosophers of mind together to explore the intersection of their disciplines in studying choice and action, as well as identity, the social world, collective agency, and other philosophical concepts as they are used in economic theory.
