Part II Mind: Mental Faculties

This is the web page for the Philosophy Part II course Mental Faculties: Intention and the Will given by Cecily Whiteley at the University of Cambridge, Lent Term 2023. This page provides information on the lecture schedule, links to readings, and pdf versions of handouts. If you have any issues accessing any of these materials and/ or general suggestions and comments please drop me an email on cmkw2@cam.ac.uk. I'll be updating this web page periodically as the term progresses. In addition to the readings listed below, the Faculty reading list contains further readings on many of these topics.

The lectures for this course will be taking place at 3-4pm in Room 3, Faculty of Divinity on the Sidgwick Site. This year, the lectures on Mental Faculties: Imagination will be given separately by Alex Fisher in Weeks 4-8.

Lecture 1: Three Faces of Intention

Handout

Primary:

Setiya, Kieran, "Intention", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2022 Edition). An excellent introduction to some of the themes we shall be covering in weeks 1-3.

Further Reading:

Ferrero, L. 2017, ‘Intending, Acting, and Doing,’ Philosophical Explorations, 20 (Supplement 2): 13–39.
Moran, R. and Stone, M., 2009, ‘Anscombe on Expression of Intention,’ in New Essays on the Explanation of Action, C. Sandis (ed.), Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 132–168.
Thompson, M., 2008, Life and Action, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (particularly pp. 91–146).

The three secondary readings listed here provide opportunity to further explore recent defences of the view that intending is a form of doing.

Lecture 2: Intention, Belief, and Desire

Handout (note this is a longer handout for those who cannot make it to lecture).

Primary:

Sinhababu, N. (2013), The Desire-Belief Account of Intention Explains Everything. Noûs, 47: 680-696. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0068.2012.00864.x
Audi, Robert (1973). Intending. Journal of Philosophy 70 (13):387-403.

Further Reading:

Bratman, M. (1999). Davidson's Theory of Intention. In Faces of Intention: Selected Essays on Intention and Agency (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy, pp. 209-224). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Includes critical discussion of the belief-desire model of intention.
Marušić, Berislav & Schwenkler, John (2018). Intending is Believing: A Defense of Strong Cognitivism. Analytic Philosophy 59 (3):309-340. As the title suggests, this paper provides further opportunity to explore cognitivism about intention.
Ridge, Michael. “Humean Intentions.” American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 35, no. 2, 1998, pp. 157–78. Defends the view that intentions are predominant desires.

Handout

Primary:

Holton, Richard: Willing, Waiting, Wanting, Chapter 1.

Further Reading:

Bratman, M. 1987, Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. The most influential account that treats intentions as sui-generis mental states.
Bratman, Michael. “Two Faces of Intention.” The Philosophical Review 93, no. 3 (1984): 375–405. For further discussion of the 'Simple View'.

Lecture 3: Intentions as Distinctive Practical Attitudes

Lecture 4: Akrasia and Weakness of the Will

Handout

Primary:

Davidson, Donald (1969). How Is Weakness of the Will Possible? In Joel Feinberg (ed.), Moral Concepts. Oxford University Press. Davidson's classic presentation and solution to the problem of akrasia.

Further Reading:

Holton, Richard (1999). Intention and Weakness of Will. Journal of Philosophy 96 (5):241. Classic paper distinguishing akrasia from weakness of the will.
May, J., Holton, R. What in the world is weakness of will?. Philos Stud 157, 341–360 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9651-8
Rorty, Amelie Oksenberg (1980). Where does the akratic break take place? Australasian Journal of Philosophy 58 (4):333 – 346.

Lecture 5: Addiction

Handout

Primary:

Pickard, Hannah (2018). 'The puzzle of addiction'. In the Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Science of Addiction. This recent talk presents a wonderfully clear introduction to the puzzle of addiction and overview of Pickard's position which you may find useful.

Further Reading:

Holton Richard & Berridge, Kent. Addiction Between Compulsion and Choice. In Neil Levy (ed.), Addiction and Self-Control. Oxford University Press.
Pickard, H. (2022): ‘Is addiction a brain disease? A Plea for agnosticism and heterogenity’. Psychopharmacology.
Heyman, G. (2013) Addiction and choice: theory and new data. Frontiers in Psychiatry.

Lecture 6: Dreaming and the Will I

Handout.

(Slides for this lecture can be downloaded here)

Primary:

Ichikawa, Jonathan (2009). Dreaming and imagination. Mind and Language 24 (1):103-121. Classic presentation of the view that dreams are subject to the will.

Further Reading:

Windt, Jennifer M. (2020). Consciousness in sleep: How findings from sleep and dream research challenge our understanding of sleep, waking, and consciousness. Philosophy Compass 15 (4).
Sutton, John (2009). Dreaming. In John Symons & Paco Calvo (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Psychology. Routledge.

Lecture 7: Dreaming and the Will II

Handout.

(Slides for this lecture can be downloaded here).

Primary:

Soteriou, Matthew (2020). Dreams, agency, and judgement. Synthese 197 (12):5319-5334. Discussion of an alternative view of non-lucid dreams as involuntary, deficits of will.

Further Reading:

Crowther, Thomas (2018). Experience, dreaming, and the phenomenology of wakeful consciousness. In Fiona Macpherson & Fabian Dorsch (eds.), Phenomenal Presence. Oxford University Press.
Voss, U and Hobson, A. 'What is the state-of-the-art on lucid dreaming? : Recent advances and questions for future research'.
LaBerge, S., Baird, B. & Zimbardo, P.G. Smooth tracking of visual targets distinguishes lucid REM sleep dreaming and waking perception from imagination. Nat Commun 9, 3298 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-05547-0
Konkoly, Karen R et al. “Real-time dialogue between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep.” Current biology : CB vol. 31,7 (2021): 1417-1427.e6. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2021.01.026

Lecture 8: Addiction, Consciousness and the Will

Handout.

Primary:

Crowther, Thomas (2016). 'Failures of rationality and self-knowledge in addiction'. In Nick Heather and Gabriel Segal (eds.), Addiction and Choice: Rethinking the Relationship. Oxford University Press

Further Reading:

Crowther, Thomas (2018). Experience, dreaming, and the phenomenology of wakeful consciousness. In Fiona Macpherson & Fabian Dorsch (eds.), Phenomenal Presence. Oxford University Press.
Soteriou, Matthew (2019). I—Waking Up and Being Conscious. Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 93 (1):111-136.
Bayne, Tim et al. “Are There Levels of Consciousness?.” Trends in cognitive sciencesvol. 20,6 (2016): 405-413. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2016.03.009.