ABSTRACT

Although scholarship in philosophy of action has grown in recent years, there has been little work explicitly dealing with the role of time in agency, a role with great significance for the study of action. As the articles in this collection demonstrate, virtually every fundamental issue in the philosophy of action involves considerations of time. The four sections of this volume address the metaphysics of action, diachronic practical rationality, the relation between deliberation and action, and the phenomenology of agency, providing an overview of the central developments in each area with an emphasis on the role of temporality. Including contributions by established, rising, and new voices in the field, Time and the Philosophy of Action brings analytic work in philosophy of action together with contributions from continental philosophy and cognitive science to elaborate the central thesis that agency not only develops in time but is shaped by it at every level.

chapter 1|18 pages

Introduction

part I|65 pages

The Metaphysics of Action

chapter 2|16 pages

Slip-Proof Actions

chapter 3|15 pages

The Antinomy of Basic Action

chapter 4|15 pages

Second Nature and Basic Action

chapter 5|18 pages

Making the Agent Reappear

How Processes Might Help

part II|73 pages

Diachronic Practical Rationality

chapter 6|21 pages

“What on Earth Was I Thinking?”

How Anticipating Plan's End Places an Intention in Time

chapter 7|16 pages

Pro-Tempore Disjunctive Intentions

chapter 8|17 pages

Evaluative Commitments

How They Guide Us over Time and Why

chapter 9|18 pages

Updating the Story of Mental Time Travel

Narrating and Engaging with Our Possible Pasts and Futures

part III|63 pages

Deliberation, Motivation, and Agency

chapter 10|14 pages

Time for Action 1

chapter 13|18 pages

Timing Is Not Everything

The Intrinsic Temporality of Action 1

part IV|61 pages

Phenomenology and the Temporality of Agency

chapter 16|15 pages

Acts as Changes

A Metabolic Approach to the Philosophy of Action 1

chapter 17|13 pages

Hamlet and the Time of Action