Philosophy
Part 2 Mind: Mental Faculties
This is the web page for the Philosophy Part 2 course Mental Faculties given by Richard Holton at the University of Cambridge, Michaelmas term 2021. This page will provide links to papers and other texts that may be useful and to pdf versions of the handouts. If you have suggestions or comments, please let me know by emailing me at rjh221@cam.ac.uk
This year the class will take place in person in Lady Margaret Hall on the Sidgwick Site on Wednesdays at the ungodly time of 9.00am. That is a very big hall, and there will probably be around 15 of us, so we can be more socially distanced than you might ever have thought possible.
Lectures
Lecture 1: Three kinds of intention talk
Primary
- For an excellent introduction to some of the themes we shall be covering, have a look at Kieran Setiya’s entry ‘Intention’ in the Stanford Encyclopedia.
Secondary
- GEM Anscombe Intention. First published in 1957, and for many years rather neglected, but now very much in vogue again. It is often hard to know where she is going, especially given the welter of distinctions in the early sections, but every page is stimulating.
- Michael Bratman, Intention, Plans and Practical Reason. The most influential account that treats intentions as irreducible mental states.
Lecture 2: Intentions as mental states
Primary
- Bratman’s book, listed above, is the main source. I give some summary, and discussion of psychological evidence, in the first chapter of my Willing, Wanting, Waiting.
Lecture 3: Knowledge and Intention
Primary
- Velleman, Epistemic Freedom
- What Good is a Will
Lecture 4: Akrasia
Primary
- Davidson. ‘How is Weakness of the Will Possible?‘
Lecture 5: Weakness of Will, Strength of Will
Primary
- Have a look at my Intention and Weakness of Will
- Broome, ‘Are Intentions Reasons?‘
- Holton, Rational Resolve
Lecture 6: Defects of the Will: Addiction
Primary
- Holton and Berridge, ‘Addiction between Compulsion and Choice‘