ABSTRACT
This chapter explores what Jonathan Culler referred to as the 'fund of human knowledge' and its application in characterisation. It summarises Margolin's main claims in list form, rather than offer any kind of detailed description of his work. The chapter considers how the reader 'establishes connections between actions and motive, behaviour and personality'. The task D. Jones and his colleagues set themselves is to identify the factors that render behaviour informative about an underlying disposition. They are concerned to identify the circumstances that lead to an inference that there is a degree of correspondence between a person's behaviour and their disposition. One might agree with Jones that awareness that a person is acting unintentionally can sometimes prevent us from making a correspondent inference. The notion of intentionality, however, is much more complex and problematic than Jones admits.
