《Understanding Human Agency》是德國哲學家伊拉斯謨·邁爾2011年由牛津大學出版社出版的哲學專著，圍繞人類能動性研究中活動性、自然秩序與理性解釋的理論衝突展開論述。
該書批判以戴維森"標準模型"為代表的事件因果還原論，主張以實體因果理論重構能動性解釋框架。通過引入基於能力實在論的"主體因果"概念，論證人類作為獨立實體可直接引發行為，而非依賴心理事件歸因。同時整合行動理由的非因果式解釋，構建融合因果機制與規範標準的雙重模型，試圖調和自然主義與規範性的對立，為人類能動性提供系統性哲學辯護。
基本介紹
- 外文名：Understanding Human Agency
- 作者：Erasmus Mayr
- 出版時間：2011年11月1日
- 出版社：OUP Oxford
- 頁數：326 頁
- ISBN：9780199606214
- 裝幀：Hardcover
內容簡介
Our self-understanding as human agents includes a commitment to three crucial claims about human agency: that agents must be active, that actions are part of the natural order of the universe, and that intentional actions can be explained by the agent's reasons for acting. While all of these claims are indispensable elements of our view of ourselves as human agents, they are in continuous conflict and tension with one another, especially once one adopts the currently predominant view of what the natural order must be like. One of the central tasks of philosophy of action consists in showing how, despite appearances, these conflicts can be resolved and our self-understanding as agents be vindicated. The mainstream of contemporary philosophy of action holds that this task can only be fulfilled by an event-causal reductive view of human agency, paradigmatically embodied in the so-called 'standard model' developed by Donald Davidson. Erasmus Mayr, in contrast, develops a new agent-causal solution to these conflicts and shows why this solution is superior both to event-causalist accounts and to Von Wright's intentionalism about agency. He offers a comprehensive theory of substance-causation on the basis of a realist conception of powers, which allows one to see how the widespread rejection of agent-causation rests on an unfounded 'Humean' view of nature and of causal processes. At the same time, Mayr addresses the question of the nature of reasons for acting and complements its substance-causal account of activity with a non-causal account of acting for reasons in terms of following a standard of success.
