{"product_id":"dynamics-in-action-intentional-behavior-as-a-complex-system-9780262600477","title":"Dynamics in Action: Intentional Behavior as a Complex System","description":"What is the difference between a wink and a blink? The answer is important not only to philosophers of mind, for significant moral and legal consequences rest on the distinction between voluntary and involuntary behavior. However, \"action theory\"--the branch of philosophy that has traditionally articulated the boundaries between action and non-action, and between voluntary and involuntary behavior--has been unable to account for the difference.\u003cp\u003eAlicia Juarrero argues that a mistaken, 350-year-old model of cause and explanation--one that takes all causes to be of the push-pull, efficient cause sort, and all explanation to be prooflike--underlies contemporary theories of action. Juarrero then proposes a new framework for conceptualizing causes based on complex adaptive systems. Thinking of causes as dynamical constraints makes bottom-up and top-down causal relations, including those involving intentional causes, suddenly tractable. A different logic for explaining actions--as historical narrative, not inference--follows if one adopts this novel approach to long-standing questions of action and responsibility.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlicia Juarrero is Professor of Philosophy at Prince George's Community College, Maryland. She is a member of the National Council on the Humanities, the governing board of the National Endowment for the Humanities.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"MIT Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50318756086034,"sku":"9780262600477","price":54.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_7ad0eded-2f3c-44f2-ac39-e344d3eb788d.jpg?v=1727560607","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/dynamics-in-action-intentional-behavior-as-a-complex-system-9780262600477","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}