Malte Hendrickx (U-M philosophy) will give a talk titled "Homeostatic Processes Are Not Actions: Against Capacity Views of Action and Agential Control."

Please visit the Seminar Series website for Zoom access information.

ABSTRACT
Philosophy of action seeks to explicate the difference between what we do (actions) and what happens to us (mere behavior). The popular control view argues that one acts if and only if one agentially controls a movement. But is an agent in control only when causally affecting an occurrent movement in the right way? Or is having the capacity to affect the unfolding movement, as needed, sufficient for agential control? According to the "Capacity View", whether I control a movement is not settled by what I do to control it, but by what I could do to control it. I show that this is wrong, since there are controlled movements for which agents have the capacity for control, yet which are neither actions nor agentially controlled. These are movements like your passive breathing and blinking, which are controlled by bodily subsystems and allow for agential interference. The capacity view is unable to separate the passive process from the active interference. Consequently, the capacity for agential control can neither be a sufficient condition for action, nor for agential control.