{"agent_id":"anscombe","agent_name":"Elizabeth Anscombe","slug":"practical-knowledge","label":"Practical knowledge: is the agent's knowledge of his own intentional action non-observational, and is practical knowledge 'the cause of what it understands'?","topic":"Practical knowledge","question":"Is the agent's knowledge of his own intentional action non-observational, and is practical knowledge 'the cause of what it understands'?","position":"Intentional action is action to which a certain sense of the question \"Why?\" applies — where the answer specifies the agent's reason, not a cause. The agent's knowledge of his own intentional action is non-observational: he does not infer what he is doing from observing himself, nor from any inner inspection of an \"intention\" as antecedent cause. Practical knowledge, after Aquinas, is \"the cause of what it understands\" (Intention §48): it is not a contemplative knowing of pre-existing facts but is constitutive of the action it knows. The same physical event can be intentional under one description and not under another — the doctrine of \"under a description\" — so that intention is not a separate inner act but a structural feature of how an action is known and described. The standard Cartesian-Humean picture, according to which intentional action is bodily movement caused by a prior mental state, is exactly the picture Intention was written to dismantle.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"Intentional action is action to which a certain sense of the question \"Why?\" applies — where the answer specifies the agent's reason, not a cause.","n":[1,2]},{"t":"The agent's knowledge of his own intentional action is non-observational: he does not infer what he is doing from observing himself, nor from any inner inspection of an \"intention\" as antecedent cause.","n":[]}],[{"t":"Practical knowledge, after Aquinas, is \"the cause of what it understands\" (Intention §48): it is not a contemplative knowing of pre-existing facts but is constitutive of the action it knows.","n":[3]},{"t":"The same physical event can be intentional under one description and not under another — the doctrine of \"under a description\" — so that intention is not a separate inner act but a structural feature of how an action is known and described.","n":[]}],[{"t":"The standard Cartesian-Humean picture, according to which intentional action is bodily movement caused by a prior mental state, is exactly the picture Intention was written to dismantle.","n":[4,5]}]],"texts":"Intention (1957) §§5-50, especially §5 (the Why-question), §28 (under a description), §32 (the practical syllogism), §48 (practical knowledge as 'the cause of what it understands,' citing Aquinas Summa Theologiae I-II Q57 a.5 ad 3); Three Philosophers (1961, with Geach) on Aristotle's De Anima and Aquinas; 'Practical Inference' (1989, in Human Life Action and Ethics); 'Thought and Action in Aristotle: What is Practical Truth?' (1965, in From Parmenides to Wittgenstein). Reception: Donald Davidson 'Actions, Reasons, and Causes' (Journal of Philosophy 1963) and Essays on Actions and Events (1980); Michael Bratman Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason (1987); David Velleman Practical Reflection (1989) and The Possibility of Practical Reason (2000); Kieran Setiya Reasons Without Rationalism (2007) and Practical Knowledge (2008); Richard Moran Authority and Estrangement (2001).","works":["Intention (1957) §§5-50, especially §5 (the Why-question), §28 (under a description), §32 (the practical syllogism), §48 (practical knowledge as 'the cause of what it understands,' citing Aquinas Summa Theologiae I-II Q57 a.5 ad 3)","Three Philosophers (1961, with Geach) on Aristotle's De Anima and Aquinas","'Practical Inference' (1989, in Human Life Action and Ethics)","'Thought and Action in Aristotle: What is Practical Truth?' (1965, in From Parmenides to Wittgenstein)"],"reception":"Donald Davidson 'Actions, Reasons, and Causes' (Journal of Philosophy 1963) and Essays on Actions and Events (1980); Michael Bratman Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason (1987); David Velleman Practical Reflection (1989) and The Possibility of Practical Reason (2000); Kieran Setiya Reasons Without Rationalism (2007) and Practical Knowledge (2008); Richard Moran Authority and Estrangement (2001).","status":"Intention founded the contemporary philosophy of action. Davidson's \"Actions, Reasons, and Causes\" (1963) is a direct response that re-Cartesianizes intention as inner cause — the central rival in the field. Bratman's planning theory and Velleman's belief-as-self-knowledge approach develop in Davidson's wake. Setiya's Reasons Without Rationalism and Practical Knowledge return to the Anscombian framework sympathetically. Moran's Authority and Estrangement on first-person authority is closer to her position than to Davidson's. The debate between the Anscombian and Davidsonian camps continues to define the field.","era":"1919-2001","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"VOLUME TWO","page":"p. 91","canonical":"","quote":"The answer that suggests itself is that they are the actions to which a certain sense of the question 'Why? is given application; the sense is defined as that in which the answer, if positive, gives a reason for acting. But this hardly get us any further, because the questions \"What is the relevant sense of the question 'Why?\"?\" and \"What is meant by 'reason for acting'?\"\" are one and the same.","label":"VOLUME TWO, p. 91"},{"n":2,"work":"Intention","page":"pp. 40–41","canonical":"","quote":"The answers to the question ' Why? which give it an application are, then, more extensive in range than the answers which give reasons for acting. This question 'Why? can now be defined as the question expecting an answer in this range. And with this we have roughly outlined the area of intentional actions. 19. We do not add anything attaching to the action at the time it is done by describing it as intentional.","label":"Intention, pp. 40–41"},{"n":3,"work":"Intention","page":"pp. 3–4","canonical":"","quote":"CONTENTS | __ Page The subject introduced under three heads: expression of intention for the future, intentional action, and intention in acting. 1 Intuitive understanding of the difference between Usefulness of considering the verbal expression of intention for the future in order to avoid various dead ends. Uselessness of an introspective explanation of intention.","label":"Intention, pp. 3–4"},{"n":4,"work":"Human Life, Action and Ethics","page":"pp. 88–89","canonical":"","quote":"It makes the assumption that the explanation of the coming about of actions by volition and intention is what thinkers of modern times call 'causal' explanation and that this is just *one* single sort of explanation. And similarly for reference to what someonebelieves, whenthis comesintoexplanation of his action.","label":"Human Life, Action and Ethics, pp. 88–89"},{"n":5,"work":"Human Life, Action and Ethics","page":"pp. 89–90","canonical":"","quote":"No. This is what he was doing — dialling a number.Of course he wantedit tomove!But saying so does not add a new event to the record. The teleology of conscious action is not to be explained as efficient causality by a condition, or state, of desire. Remembering that *that* was 'what I did... for,' does not have to involve remembering such a state.","label":"Human Life, Action and Ethics, pp. 89–90"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"modern-moral-philosophy","label":"Modern moral philosophy: should the concepts of moral obligation and the 'moral ought' be jettisoned because they survive from a divine law theory of ethics?"},{"slug":"anti-consequentialism","label":"Anti-consequentialism: is there a real moral difference between intended and merely foreseen consequences, and is consequentialism therefore false?"},{"slug":"absolutism","label":"Absolutism: are some things — most centrally, the intentional killing of the innocent — absolutely forbidden, regardless of consequences?"},{"slug":"the-first-person","label":"The First Person: is 'I' a referring expression, or is the Cartesian self picked out by the first-person pronoun a grammatical illusion?"},{"slug":"catholic-moral-theology","label":"Catholic moral theology: do the absolute prohibitions and the philosophy of religion follow from independent philosophical argument, or do they presuppose the authority of Church teaching?"}]}