Conclusion

Motor representations specify outcomes and ground the directedness of instrumental actions to outcomes. The case for invoking intention to solve The Problem of Action does not appear stronger than the case for invoking motor representation. Yet again, philosophical and psychological theories appear incompatible.

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Notes

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Glossary

motor representation : The kind of representation characteristically involved in preparing, performing and monitoring sequences of small-scale actions such as grasping, transporting and placing an object. They represent actual, possible, imagined or observed actions and their effects.

The Problem of Action : What distinguishes your actions from things that merely happen to you? (According to Frankfurt (1978, p. 157), ‘The problem of action is to explicate the contrast between what an agent does and what merely happens to him.’)

References

Frankfurt, H. G. (1978). The problem of action. American Philosophical Quarterly, 15(2), 157–162.

Pacherie, E. (2008). The phenomenology of action: A conceptual framework. Cognition, 107(1), 179–217. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2007.09.003