행위, 선택지, 그리고 ‘실천적 지식’

초록

According to the standard model of action, what distinguishes an action from mere happenings is that it can be justified and explained by reference to the agent’s beliefs and desires. However, on an alternative view of action—one originating with Elizabeth Anscombe—for something to count as an action, it must involve ‘practical knowledge’. That is, the agent must have knowledge of her action in a special way. This view has often been thought to pose an insurmountable challenge to the standard model. Many philosophers have attempted to address this challenge by modifying the standard model while preserving its core ideas. However, such attempts appear to have had limited success. In contrast to these approaches, this paper argues that when properly understood, practical knowledge should be seen not as a challenge to the standard model, but as its necessary consequence. The key idea is that the standard model requires that the agent recognize the set of ‘options’, and that these options must be understood in terms of epistemic uncertainty. On this picture, a decision should be understood as eliminating options, and because of this, decision-making necessarily results in practical knowledge.

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