Philosophy Seminar Series: 5 January 2011, 2-3:45pm, Philosophy Resource Room; Speaker: Adrian Haddock, Lecturer, University of Stirling, Scotland; Moderator: Dr. Tang Weng Hong

Abstract: This paper compares two different accounts of the knowledge that we have of our intentional actions: an account which is committed to the claim that if we are doing such-and-such intentionally then we know that we are doing such-and-such, and an account which is not committed to this claim.  The paper does three things: it criticises John Gibbons’ recent attempt at formulating an account of the latter sort; it offers an account of the latter sort which avoids the problems with afflict Gibbons; and it tells a story about how the accounts are related, by drawing on recent work by Michael Thompson.

About the speaker: Adrian Haddock is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Stirling, Scotland.  He has published on action, knowledge, and idealism. His recent work includes ‘“The knowledge that a man has of his intentional actions”’, in Anton Ford, Jennifer Hornsby, and Frederick Stoutland (eds.) Essays on Anscombe’s Intention (Harvard University Press, 2011); ‘Davidson and Idealism’, in Joel Smith and Peter Sullivan (eds.) Transcendental Philosophy and Naturalism (Oxford University Press, 2011); and (co-authored with Alan Millar and Duncan Pritchard), The Nature and Value of Knowledge: Three Investigations (Oxford University Press, 2010).