Goals, No-Goals and Own Goals: A Debate on Goal Directed and Intentional Behaviour

Montefiore, A.

ISBN 10: 0044453418 ISBN 13: 9780044453413

Publisher: Routledge, 1989

Synopsis

There is an urgent need to assess the impact of studies in neuroscience and animal behaviour on how we are to think about ourselves. In this book three scientists and three philosophers offer a response to this need by engaging in a stimulating debate that transcends the usual boundaries between scientific and philosophical enquiry. Originating from university seminars held in Oxford over many years, each author takes a highly developed position; the scientists argue with each other quite as much as with the philosophers, and vice versa. The result is a very unusual debate which is equally accessible to philosophers and scientists. The central theme is the significance and nature of goal-directed and intentional behaviour. At one extreme, David McFarland, Reader in Animal Behaviour at the University of Oxford, brings into radical question the need for either of these concepts, at least in the scientific study of animal behaviour. At the other extreme, the Oxford philosopher, Alan Montefiore, argues that such concepts are indispensable to any explication of the meaningful use of language and that we must therefore acknowledge their importance in understanding the nature of human behaviour.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0044453418
• ISBN 13: 9780044453413
• Binding: Library Binding
• Number of pages: 320