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Ascribing goals and reasons| old_uid | 11235 |
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| title | Ascribing goals and reasons |
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| start_date | 2012/04/04 |
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| schedule | 14h-16h |
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| online | no |
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| location_info | salle F 101 |
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| summary | Humans and perhaps other species are prolific in ascribing goals. But how is goal ascription possible even in principle? The question is not how goals are actually ascribed. Rather it concerns what someone would have to know about another agent and her actions in order to know to which goals an action of hers is directed. A familiar view in philosophy has it that goal ascription depends on the ascription of intentions, which in turn is interdependent with ascriptions of belief and desire. On this view goal ascription is possible only as part of a larger mindreading project. By contrast, cognitive neuroscientists, developmental psychologists and ethologists have assumed that goal ascription is possible even without knowing anything of an agent's mental states. In this talk my concern is with this pure form of goal ascription, goal ascription that occurs independently of knowledge of mental states. My primary aim is to identify obstacles to the very possibility of pure goal ascription, obstacles whose existence lends support to the idea that goal ascription is only possible as part of a larger mindreading project. My other aim is to show that some aspects of the role of motor representation in action observation suggest ways of avoiding or overcoming these obstacles, and so of defending the possibility of pure goal ascription. |
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| responsibles | Roy |
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