Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-lvwk9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-19T13:07:52.351Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

My Hand Goes Out to You

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

John W. Yolton
John W. Yolton
Affiliation:
York University, Toronto, Canada
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

‘When a dog runs, the dog is moving his legs; when a sea urchin runs, the legs are moving the sea urchin.’ Philosophers have come to appreciate the importance of understanding what action is. Their attempts at the clarification of ‘action’ have led them to talk of arms going up, muscles contracting, psychokinesis, bodies moving. They want to distinguish between sea urchins and dogs. Joined with the concept of action there is that of the person. Some are inclined to say we fail to understand action when we treat the agent as the responding organism; in such a view there is no room for ‘responsibility’, ‘duty’, ‘ought’, ‘intention’, ‘volition’. Man as responding organism cannot be distinguished from sea urchins or from complex mechanisms.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 41 , Issue 156 , April 1966 , pp. 140 - 152
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1966

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 140 note 1 J. von Uexküll, quoted by Lorenz, Konrad Z., ‘The Role of Gestalt Perception in Animal and Human Behaviour’, in Aspects of Form, ed. by L. L. Whyte, p. 159Google Scholar

page 141 note 1 Minkus, P. A., Philosophy of the Person, p. 10.Google Scholar

page 141 note 2 Vesey, G. N. A., ‘Volition’, in Philosophy, vol. XXXVI, 10 1961, p. 354Google Scholar; O'Shaughnessy, Brian, ‘The Limits of the Will’, The Philosophical Review, vol. LXV, 10 1956, p. 471.Google Scholar

page 141 note 3 O'Shaughnessy, , p. 458.Google Scholar

page 141 note 4 Minkus, , p. 2.Google Scholar

page 141 note 5 Ibid., p. 94.

page 143 note 1 Philosophical Works of Descartes, vol. I, trans. by Haldane, and Ross, , pp. 41, 39 (Dover edition).Google Scholar

page 143 note 2 Grundlegung, in Kant's Critique of Practical Reason and Other Works, trans. by Abbott, T. K., p. 71.Google Scholar

page 147 note 1 The Critique of Judgment, trans. by Meredith, , Oxford, 1952, Pt. I, p. 14.Google Scholar

page 147 note 2 Ibid., p. 37.

page 148 note 1 Ibid., p. 37, n.

page 149 note 1 Anscombe, G. E. M., Intention, p. 10.Google Scholar