Philosophical action theory is concerned with conjectures about the processes causing intentional (wilful) human bodily movements of more or less complex kind. This area of thought has attracted strong interest of philosophers ever since Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Third Book). Increasingly, considerations of action theory were taken up by scholars in the social sciences. With the advent of psychology and later neuroscience, many conjectures of action theory are now subject to empirical testing. Philosopher in Meditation (detail), by Rembrandt. ... Aristotle (Ancient Greek: , Aristotélēs) (384 BC – March 7, 322 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. ... Nicomachean Ethics (sometimes spelled Nichomachean), is a work by Aristotle on virtue and character and plays a prominent role in defining Aristotelian ethics. ... The social sciences are groups of academic disciplines that study the human aspects of the world. ... Psychology (Gk: psyche, soul or mind + logos, speech) is an academic and applied field involving the study of the human mind, brain, and behavior. ... Neuroscience is a field of study that deals with the structure, function, development, genetics, biochemistry, physiology, pharmacology, and pathology of the nervous system, consisting of the myriad nerve pathways running throughout the body. ...

A basic action theory typically describes behaviour as the result of an interaction between an individual agent and a situation. Individual desires come together with beliefs about how desires can be fulfilled under given circumstances. The process of choice leads to the enaction of a behaviour strategy which promises optimum outcomes in the light of all personal desires.

Such a theory of prospective rationality underlies much of economics and other social sciences within the more sophisticated framework of Rational Choice. However, action theory often goes beyond arguments on human rational deliberation about the best means to achieve known ends. The long-standing notion of habit implies the immediate activation of a learned behaviour pattern in familiar situations without rational scrutiny of its foreseeable consequences. Similarly, reflexes as the intuitive, biologically founded choice of behaviour strategies bypasses reasoning. Furthermore, central concepts like consciousness, emotion, weakness of will, morality, rules and reasons for action occupy differing roles in the multitude of treatises on action theory. Buyers bargain for good prices while sellers put forth their best front in Chichicastenango Market, Guatemala. ... The social sciences are groups of academic disciplines that study the human aspects of the world. ... Rational choice theory is a way of looking at deliberations between a number of potential courses of action, in which rationality of one form or another is used either to decide which course of action would be the best to take, or to predict which course of action actually will...

While action theorists generally employ the language of causality when arguing about factors and processes preceding human behaviour, the issue of full causal determination has been central to controversies about the meaning of free will. The philosophical concept of causality, the principles of causes, or causation, the working of causes, refers to the set of all particular causal or cause-and-effect relations. ... Free will is the philosophical doctrine that holds that our choices are ultimately up to ourselves. ...

Scholars of action theory

• G. E. M. Anscombe
• Pierre Bourdieu
• Michael Bratman
• John Broome
• Donald Davidson
• Harry Frankfurt
• Rosalind Hursthouse
• David Hume
• Jennifer Hornsby
• Robert Kane
• Alfred Mele
• G.F. Schueler
• John Searle
• Charles Taylor
• J.David Velleman
• Georg Henrik von Wright
• Gary Watson
• Ludwig Wittgenstein

Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe (March 18, 1919 – January 5, 2001) (known as Elizabeth Anscombe, published as G. E. M. Anscombe) was a British analytic philosopher, a theologian and a pupil of Ludwig Wittgenstein. ... Pierre Bourdieu (August 1, 1930 – January 23, 2002) was an acclaimed French sociologist whose work ranged widely from philosophy to sociology and anthropology. ... Michael Bratman is Durfee Professor in the School of Humanities & Sciences and Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University. ... John Broome is a British philosopher and economist. ... Donald Davidson (March 6, 1917 – August 30, 2003) was an American philosopher and the Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. ... Harry Gordon Frankfurt (born May 29, 1929) is a professor emeritus of philosophy at Princeton University. ... Rosalind Hursthouse is a moral philosopher noted for her work on virtue ethics. ... David Hume (April 26, 1711 – August 25, 1776)[1] was a Scottish philosopher, economist, and historian who is one of the most important figures of Western philosophy and of the Scottish Enlightenment. ... Jennifer Hornsby (1951 - ) is a British philosopher of mind, action and language. ... Template:Robert Kane Robert Kane (1938- ) Robert Kane is University Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. ... John Rogers Searle (born July 31, 1932) is Mills Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, and is noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and consciousness, on the characteristics of socially constructed versus physical realities, and on practical reason. ... Charles Taylor, CC, BA, MA, Ph. ... Georg Henrik von Wright (pronounced, roughly, vrikt) (June 14, 1916 – June 16, 2003) was a Finnish philosopher, who succeeded Ludwig Wittgenstein as professor at the University of Cambridge. ... Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (IPA: ) (April 26, 1889 – April 29, 1951) was an Austrian philosopher who contributed several ground-breaking works to contemporary philosophy, primarily on the foundations of logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of mind. ...

Quotes

• Ludwig Wittgenstein: "What is left over if I subtract the fact that my arm goes up from the fact that I raise my arm?" (From: L. Wittgenstein: "Philosophical Investigations §621)

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (IPA: ) (April 26, 1889 – April 29, 1951) was an Austrian philosopher who contributed several ground-breaking works to contemporary philosophy, primarily on the foundations of logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of mind. ...

See also

• Action (philosophy)

An action, as philosophers use the term, is a certain kind of thing a person can do. ...

References

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Action, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/action/
• Mele, Alfred (ed.): The Philosophy of Action, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997