There are reasons for us to act in certain ways and think certain things. We can recognise those reasons for what they are and respond to them accordingly. This thesis is an investigation of that phenomenon. In particular, it constitutes an attempt to resist certain ways in which our understanding of it can be distorted by letting our account of it be informed by bad cases of responding to reasons: cases in which one takes something to be a reason and responds accordingly by acting or thinking in the way it seems to one to recommend, even though one fails (blamelessly) to act or think for a genuine reason. I examine and reject three ways in which the possibility of bad cases might distort our thinking about the phenomenon at issue. First, we should reject the thought that the subject is able to act or think for the reason that p in both bad cases and good, so that acting or believing for a reason cannot simply be identical to the success condition of responding to a genuine reason. Second, we should reject the thought that the reasons for which we act and think are psychological features of ourselves, because that must be so in bad cases, and what goes for bad cases goes across the board. Finally, we should reject the thought that acting in response to a genuine reason involves only a rationalising explanation of the same type as that which is present in the bad case. The result is a vindication of the position promoted by Raz (2011): responding to reasons is a matter of acting or thinking in a way than manifests one's knowledge of the reasons there are for one to so act or think, so that the reasons in question, which are usually facts about the external world, explain why one does so qua reasons. Bad cases are a different kind of thing entirely.

I identify and examine the grounds on which we describe an agent's non-doing as an omission to do X, and a cause of Y. I distinguish between the formal and material aspects of an omission. This is useful in setting aside obvious differences between actions and omissions, which some writers take to be significant, in particular the view that an omission can be identified with whatever action an agent performs or movement he makes when he omits to X. In fact, he need not make a bodily movement, perform some other action in order to prevent himself from doing X, or decide not to perform X. It is by no means certain that any omission is timeable, and most are certainly not. I note difficulties for any account of intention that is meant to embrace intentional omissions as well as actions. I do not offer a single, all-embracing account of omissions, because I think it is impossible to provide one. I acknowledge the importance of the role of expectation in identifying omissions, particularly as causes, but argue that there are sorts of omissions which are not identified by the presence of defeated expectation. I take the view that some omissions are in an important way indistinguishable from actions and may therefore be regarded as causes. Also that some non-doings which are not omissions may be regarded as causes. I criticise the ability of traditional analyses of causality to comprehend the possibility of omissive causation and expound alternative accounts of what constitutes a cause in order to do justice to that possibility. I find useful Collingwood's account of what it is to speak of causality in terms appropriate to a practical natural science; that is, in the language of means and ends.

There are two central arguments in this project. The first is a kind of ‘second-order’ argument, that is, an argument about the dialectical situation of an existing argument (namely, about the ‘free will problem’). The second is a straightforward argument about agency, but one which can be better addressed—I claim—once the second-order argument has been made. The ‘free will problem’ is widely claimed to be one of the perennial philosophical problems. But it is not one that has any widely accepted solution. The reason for this, as others have acknowledged, is due in large part to the wide range of problems that have historically been considered under the rubric of ‘the free will problem’. My proposal is straightforward: stop talking about ‘free will’ altogether! More precisely, my claim is that we could—in principle— eliminate the term. However, it may be more difficult in practise to actually cease using the term, and so my prescription is to define the term operationally, as a philosophers’ technical term. As I will go on to explain, ‘free will’ means something like: ‘whatever it is, if anything, in virtue of which people are appropriate subjects of moral responsibility’. The second argument then becomes apparent: setting aside the question of moral responsibility, we can see that there are a number of putative ‘free will’ issues that don’t go away. While most things can be sectioned off into the moral responsibility debate, as explained above, several of these issues actually turn out to depend on the concept of agency. This has not previously been recognised because of the structure of the ‘free will debate’, and especially because of its fixation on the notions of determinism and indeterminism. I then go on to sketch the outlines of a positive account of agency that can independently address those concerns which were previously thought to be about ‘free will’.

This thesis looks at the way in which human nature has been construed and examined, with the focus on modern theorisations and conceptualisations. Here I separate theories of human nature according to a taxonomy of location – where they “place” human nature in the wider context of human existence (physical/biological, interpersonal, psychological, social, cultural etc.). I assert that this is the key to assessing theories of human nature; such theories can be evaluated on how well their placement encapsulates some meaningful aspect of what it means to be human. To this end, each of the first three chapters is concerned with a grouping of approaches within the aforementioned taxonomy – what I refer to as “schemas” – which I assert have affinities due to similarities in the ways they address what they understand to be human nature. I dissect their approaches, considering each on its own merits, and discuss their strengths and weaknesses. I devote a fourth chapter to objections to the very idea of human nature. Here I address a number of complications or issues that might affect any given theory of human nature (as opposed to specific issues relating to particular schemas). However whilst these objections pose a challenge for human nature theories, in that they complicate our ability to accurately know and describe what makes us quintessentially human, they do not conclusively disprove the existence of human nature per se. Thus I conclude by suggesting how this location-based taxonomy might help us construct a consistent and accurate human nature theory. I argue for an interdisciplinary, synthetic human nature theory that elaborates on a political interpretation of ethological and anthropological approaches, which I ultimately characterise as analogous to critical theory or evolutionary theory – in that it forms a general paradigm centred on a particular phenomenon rather than a fixed theoretical construct.

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In this project, I defend a holistic, internalist conceptual-role theory of mental content (‘Holism’, for short). The account of communicative success which must be adopted by the Holist is generally thought to be unattractive and perhaps even untenable. The primary aim of my thesis is to show that this account is actually far more plausible than the accounts available to competing theories of mental content. Holism is thought to suffer from a special problem of communication because it entails that no two subjects ever mean the same thing by an utterance of the same word-forms, or share the same thought content. Many think that it is necessary for communicative success (or, at least, sometimes required) that the content grasped by the hearer is the same content as that which is expressed by the speaker. As such, theories such as social externalism are thought to be well-equipped to explain communicative success because they can posit shared content. Holism claims that subjects think, and speak, in their own idiosyncratic idiolects. As such, Holists must deny that it is ever required for communicative success that subjects share content. Holists must maintain instead that successful communication requires only similarity of content between speaker and hearer. This is supposed to be a serious cost of the view. In this project, I argue that it is, in fact, a virtue. Views like Holism, which can posit only mere similarity of content, are better placed to explain communicative success than views which can posit shared content. In the first part of my thesis, I argue that externalist theories of content face a dilemma when it comes to explaining communicative success. They must choose between (a), endorsing an account of communication which renders the relationship between the content expressed by the speaker and grasped by the hearer irrelevant to communicative success and (b), endorsing an account which gives implausible diagnoses as to the success and failure of communicative attempts. I argue that the reason that externalist theories face this dilemma is because they allow that content and understanding can come apart. Interestingly, it is, in part, because they posit a communal language that they face the dilemma. In contrast, the Holist’s similar content account does not face the dilemma. It can naturally incorporate understanding into its explanation of how mental content facilitates communicative success because, on Holism, understanding perfectly tracks mental content. In the second part of my thesis, I develop an account of communicative success for the Holist and defend the account from objections. The account claims that communication succeeds to the degree that content is similar across communication partners. In defending the view, I propose a criterion for similarity of content for the Holist. I also argue that (pure) internalists can agree with externalists as to the extensions of concepts and the truth-conditions of contents without the need to appeal to any factors outside of the individual. Finally, I explain how my account of communication impacts upon a theory of testimony. Most work on testimony stipulates that the content of the testimony grasped by the hearer is the same as that expressed by the speaker. I present and defend an account of testimony which claims instead that testimonial exchanges can be successful even when the content grasped by the hearer is merely similar to the content expressed by the speaker.

Wilfrid Sellars has made familiar a distinction between manifest and scientific images of man-in-the-world. The manifest image is 'a sophistication and refinement of the image in terms of which man first came to be aware of himself as man-in-the-world' ([2], p.18)/ and in its methodology 'limits itself to what correlational techniques can tell us about perceptible and introspectible events' (p.19). The scientific image, on the other hand, 'postulates imperceptible objects and events for the purpose of explaining correlations among perceptibles.' (ib.) This thesis is centred on a consideration of two difficulties facing anyone who takes the manifest image seriously as an autonomous image of man. In chapter 1 I consider the connection between perception and its objects, and argue that there is a disharmony between the manifest and scientific accounts of this connection. But I also suggest that the manifest image, which incorporates a certain Cartesianism or internalism, cannot lightly be dispensed with in our understanding of the nature of experience. Chapter 2 is a companion piece to chapter 1: in it I argue that the manifest view of experience accords a certain metaphysical priority to secondary over primary qualities in the constitution of any world capable of being experienced; I also suggest that the scientific image is dependent on the manifest image/ and so cannot subvert it. In chapter 3 I turn to the other main area of difficulty: freedom. I argue that free will as the incompatibilist contrues it is constitutive of the time-order; but that it carries with it implicit internal contradictions. The conflict here lies within the manifest image; the scientific image discerns no such freedom/ and so incurs no such problems. But if I am right that freedom constitutes time/ it will not be an option for us to disembarrass ourselves of the contradictions. I also argue that there is a relation of mutual dependence between freedom/ incompatibilistically construed/ and internalism. The manifest image as a whole - deeply problematic as it is - is therefore grounded in and entailed by something quite ineluctable/ namely the reality of the time-series. This is the principal conclusion of the thesis. If I succeed here/ I provide support for the claim that our difficulties with the manifest image cannot be solved by abandoning it: the manifest image/ problems and all/ must just be lived with. The remainder of the thesis explores topics related to this main thrust. Chapter 4 is really an appendix to chapter 3; it shows how no parallel difficulties attend the constitution of experiential space/ because space is (unlike time) not transcendental. In chapter 5 I examine the commitments of the notion of the transcendental self/ whose existence was deduced in chapter 3 as a condition of freedom. In particular, I aim to show how that self inherits some of the difficulties of its parent concept of freedom; but also how a distinction between transcendental and empirical components in the self can help us with the problem of privacy.

This thesis investigates the role of representations and intersubjectivity in explaining pretend play of young children. Its goal is to show that basic forms of pretending can be explained without recourse to mental representations. The thesis targets two aspects of pretence: imagining (underlying the ability to act as if), and guiding (underlying the ability to play in specific ways). It proposes an alternative account of pretence to cognitivist accounts that dominate in the literature. The alternative account is based on enactivism; it proposes to explain pretending through dynamic interactions of environmental affordances and animal effectivities in context. The thesis emphasises the role of social and environmental factors as well as cultural engagements in shaping the relevant context for pretence to occur. The thesis is an important contribution both to the literature on pretence as well as to philosophy of mind. While the topic of pretence is narrow, considering it through enactive lens involves considering some of the most debated issues, such as the applicability of mechanistic explanations to studying cognition.

Talents play a central role in the way that we live our lives, and it is widely assumed that identifying and developing one’s talents is valuable, both for oneself and for others. Despite this, the philosophical literature is seriously lacking in its discussion of the nature and value of talent; the objective goodness of talent and its development is often assumed without an analysis of what a talent is, and the value that we place on it. This dissertation aims to provide such an analysis, offering a philosophical account of the nature and value of talent, and an account of why we value its development. In doing so, I demonstrate how this can inform and help us assess the debates and arguments that are made in the existing philosophical literature on talent. I do not aim to provide an exhaustive overview of all the philosophical issues that could be raised in relation to the value of talent and talent development, but instead I focus on three central issues that arise when analysing the nature of talents and the role that they play in our lives. The first issue is the nature of talent itself. Here I offer an account of talent, understood as a high level of potential for a particular skill which is expressed and manifested in the excellent acquisition of that skill. The second issue is whether or not we have good prudential reasons or a moral obligation to develop our talents. I begin by objecting to Kant’s claim that there is a moral duty to develop one’s talents; I will argue that if there is such a duty, it will not be generated by the commitments of Kant’s moral theory. I then argue that whether or not talent development is morally required, or prudentially good, is conditional on one’s endorsement of the commitments that are required to bring about the development of one’s talent. Finally, I turn my focus to the relationship between talents and equality. Given the fact that some people are more talented than others, and the way in which this disrupts levels of social equality, I examine how we ought to counteract the injustice caused by unequal levels of talent. I argue that we ought to adopt the luck egalitarian neutralisation approach, as this most plausibly frames the way in which unequal talents disrupt levels of equality, and why any arising inequalities count as unjust.

The idea that humans are prone to widespread and systematic biases has dominated the psychological study of thinking and decision-making. The conclusion that has often been drawn is that people are irrational. In recent decades, however, a number of psychologists have started to call into question key claims and findings in research on human biases. In particular, a body of research has come together under the heading of adaptive rationality (henceforth AR). AR theorists argue that people should not be assessed against formal principles of rationality but rather against the goals they entertain. Moreover, AR theorists maintain that the conclusion that people are irrational is unsupported: people are often remarkably successful once assessed against their goals and given the cognitive and external constraints imposed by the environment. The growth of literature around AR is what motivates the present investigation, and assessing the plausibility of the AR challenge to research on human biases is the goal of this thesis. My enquiry analyses several aspects of this suggested turn in the empirical study of rationality and provides one of the first philosophically-informed appraisals of the prospects of AR. First and foremost, my thesis seeks to provide a qualified defence of the AR project. On the one hand, I agree with AR theorists that there is room for a conceptual revolution in the study of thinking and decision-making: while it is commonly argued that behaviour and cognition should be assessed against formal principles of rationality, I stress the importance of assessing behaviour against the goals that people entertain. However, I also contend that AR theorists have hitherto failed to provide compelling evidence in support of their most ambitious and optimistic theses about people’s rationality. In particular, I present a great deal of evidence suggesting that people are often unsuccessful at achieving prudential and epistemic goals and I argue that AR theorists have not made clear how, in light of this evidence, optimistic claims about human rationality could be defended.