Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

Many philosophers have been lately attracted to the hypothesis that mental events such as judging, deciding, reasoning or trying are mental actions, by which they mean that they are events that belong to the same class as overt or bodily actions. For instance, Peacocke (2007) argues for the following two theses:

“(1) Much conscious thought consists of mental actions;

(2) A thinker’s awareness of those of his mental events that are mental actions is a species of action awareness. This I call “The Principal Hypothesis””.

The idea that some mental events or processes are actions is open to numerous readings. Thus, it is possible to hold that some mental events are actions simply because in some mental events we find a subject doing something, or, even more liberally, because we would describe whatever is going on as the subject’s doing something (i.e., we would use the vocabulary of actions). We will not say anything here about this liberal reading of the mental actions hypothesis. However, the most conspicuous current defenders of the hypothesis have a different –stronger- thesis in mind. The thesis states that some mental events and overt or bodily actions form a psychological kind. That is, judging, deciding and reasoning are, essentially, the same kind of (psychological) thing as moving one’s hand. This stronger thesis will be the target of my objections.