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Intention as action under development: why intention is not a mental state

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Devlin Russell
Devlin Russell*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
*
Email: devlinru@buffalo.edu This article was originally published with error. This version has been corrected. Please see Erratum (https://doi.org/10.1080/00455091.2017.1422899).
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Abstract

This paper constructs a theory according to which an intention is not a mental state but an action at a certain developmental stage. I model intention on organic life, and thus intention stands to action as (e.g.) tadpole stands to frog. I then argue for this theory by showing how it overcomes three problems: intending while (1) merely preparing, (2) not taking any steps, and (3) the action is impossible. The problems vanish when we see that not all actions are mature. Just as some frogs (such as tadpoles) are immature frogs, some actions (such as intentions) are immature actions.

Keywords

Intentionactionprospective intentionpure intentionreasons for actionpractical reasoncausal theory of reasonsdeviant causationimperfective aspectnaive action theory
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 48 , Issue 5 , 2018 , pp. 742 - 761
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. 2018

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A correction has been issued for this article:

Erratum