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10Being inclined: Félix Ravaisson's philosophy of habit. MarkSinclair. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2019. 256 pp. ISBN 978‐0‐19‐880966‐1. $57.00 (review)European Journal of Philosophy 28 (3): 825-829. 2020.
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60Habit, Omission and ResponsibilityTopoi 40 (3): 695-705. 2020.Given the pervasiveness of habit in human life, the distinctive problems posed by habitual acts for accounts of moral responsibility deserve more attention than they have hitherto received. But whereas it is hard to find a systematic treatment habitual acts within current accounts of moral responsibility, proponents of such accounts have turned their attention to a topic which, I suggest, is a closely related one: unwitting omissions. Habitual acts and unwitting omissions raise similar issues fo…Read more
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27Habit and AutomaticityProceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy 44 11-15. 2018.Although some of the most important figures in the history of philosophy have had something interesting to say about habit, habitual action has been largely neglected in contemporary action theory. An attempt to mitigate the consequences of this neglect has been recently made by Bill Pollard. Pollard’s approach, however, cannot do full justice to the distinctiveness of habitual action with respect to its phenomenology. The reason is that, as with most treatments of habit in the philosophical tra…Read more
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48Deliberation and Automaticity in Habitual ActsEthics in Progress 9 (1): 25-43. 2018.Most philosophers and psychologists assume that habitual acts do not ensue from deliberation, but are direct responses to the circumstances: habit essentially involves a variety of automaticity. My objective in this paper is to show that this view is unduly restrictive. A habit can explain an act in various ways. Pointing to the operation of automaticity is only one of them. I draw attention to the fact that acquired automaticity is one outgrowth of habituation that is relevant to explanation, b…Read more
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93The varieties of agential powersEuropean Journal of Philosophy 27 (4): 982-1001. 2019.The domain of agential powers is marked by a contrast that does not arise in the case of dispositions of inanimate objects: the contrast between propensities or tendencies on the one hand, and capacities or abilities on the other. According to Ryle (1949), this contrast plays an important role in the ‘logical geography’ of the dispositional concepts used in the explanation and assessment of action. However, most subsequent philosophers use the terms of art ‘power’ or ‘disposition’ indiscriminate…Read more
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102Learning, Acquired Dispositions and the Humean Theory of MotivationPhilosophical Papers 47 (2): 199-233. 2018.A central point of contention in the ongoing debate between Humean and anti-Humean accounts of moral motivation concerns the theoretical credentials of the idea of mental states that are cognitive and motivational at the same time. Humeans claim that this idea is incoherent and thereby unintelligible (M. Smith, The Moral Problem, Blackwell 1994). I start by developing a linguistic argument against this claim. The semantics of certain ‘learning to’ and ‘knowing to’ ascriptions points to a disposi…Read more
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240The spontaneousness of skill and the impulsivity of habitSynthese 196 (10): 4305-4328. 2019.The objective of this paper is to articulate a distinction between habit and bodily skill as different ways of acting without deliberation. I start by elaborating on a distinction between habit and skill as different kinds of dispositions. Then I argue that this distinction has direct implications for the varieties of automaticity exhibited in habitual and skilful bodily acts. The argument suggests that paying close attention to the metaphysics of agency can help to articulate more precisely que…Read more
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95Pollard on Habits of ActionInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 25 (4): 504-524. 2017.Bill Pollard has recently developed an account of habits of action, endeavoring to rehabilitate the traditional notion of habit in a way that can be used to address current philosophical concerns. I argue that Pollard’s account has important shortcomings. The account is intended to apply indiscriminately to both habitual and skilled acts, but this overlooks crucial distinctions. Moreover, Pollard’s account fails to do justice to the various ways in which the idea of habit figures in the explanat…Read more
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191‘Learning (Not) To’ and Practical KnowledgeGrazer Philosophische Studien 94 (4): 495-523. 2017._ Source: _Page Count 29 The author raises objections to the intellectualist analysis of knowing-how on the basis of certain features of ‘learning to’ ascriptions. He starts by observing that ‘learning to’ ascriptions can only have a first-personal reading. Since embedded questions make the generic reading available, this suggests that ‘learning to’ ascriptions are not embedded question configurations. Then the author locates an ambiguity in ‘learning to’ ascriptions. They can be used to ascribe…Read more
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180The linguistic argument for intellectualismSynthese 190 (12): 2325-2340. 2013.A central argument against Ryle’s (The concept of mind, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1949) distinction between propositional and non propositional knowledge has relied on linguistic evidence. Stanley and Williamson (J Philos 98:411–444, 2001) have claimed that knowing-how ascriptions do not differ in any relevant syntactic or semantic respect from ascriptions of propositional knowledge, concluding thereby that knowing-how ascriptions attribute propositional knowledge, or a kind thereof.…Read more
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100Habit and IntentionPhilosophia 45 (3): 1129-1148. 2017.Several authors have argued that the things one does in the course of skilled and habitual activity present a difficult case for the ‘standard story’ of action. They are things intentionally done, but they do not seem to be suitably related to mental states. I suggest that once manifestations of habit are properly distinguished from exercises of skills and other kinds of spontaneous acts, we can see that habit raises a distinctive sort of problem. I examine certain responses that have been given…Read more
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56Settling and Bodily ControlInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 56 (6): 639-652. 2013.In A Metaphysics for Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), Helen Steward develops a distinctive account of agency designed to support her argument for ‘Agency Incompatibilism’. I argue that Steward’s account of agency has two main shortcomings. First, the extension of the agency concept Steward is committed to is problematic. Second, Steward’s account of agency turns out on inspection to have significant structural affinities to the accounts it is meant to oppose, and thus faces simil…Read more
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Aristotle University of ThessalonikiSchool of Philosophy and Education
Areas of Interest
1 more
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
Metaphysics |
Normative Ethics |
Meta-Ethics |