Theo Todman's Web Page - Paper Abstracts

Author’s Abstract

1. "What is left over," Wittgenstein¹ once asked, "if I subtract the fact that my arm goes up from the fact that I raise my arm?"
2. In this paper, I shall try to give a nonreductive and nondualistic answer to this question.
3. First, I shall simply present a view of human action that allows a straightforward answer to Wittgenstein²’s question, and then show how this view of human action fits into a general conception of what a human person or agent is.
4. Next, I shall show how this view can handle what Jaegwon Kim has called “the problem of explanatory exclusion”.
5. Finally, I shall offer reasons why a nonreductive approach to action is needed.