I deliver an account of 'practical knowledge'; the knowledge we have of our own intentional actions. Part One introduces the target notion by describing three philosophically interesting features it appears to have (Ch. 1) and dismisses two broad approaches to understanding it - a 'consciousness-based' and an 'inferentialist' approach (Ch. 2). A third approach is thus motivated: 'Intentionalist' accounts of practical knowledge see practical knowledge as somehow constituted by the agent's intention. Part Two considers and rejects a version of Intentionalism which I call Cognitivist Intentionalism - CI. Cognitivist Intentionalists think of intentions as a kind of belief. Practical knowledge is constituted by intention in whatever way ordinary knowledge is constituted by belief, but it is a special kind of knowledge because its constituting attitude is special. I dismiss two versions of CI, showing them to be internally problematic (Ch. 3). I then argue that intentions are not propositional attitudes (Ch. 4), thus ruling out any version of CI - if intentions were beliefs they would have to be propositional attitudes. Part Three considers the remaining options for Intentionalism. According to Non-Cognitivist Intentionalism - NCI - practical knowledge is constituted by intentions, which are not a kind of belief, just in case they are executed. NCI happily accommodates practical knowledge's philosophically interesting features. But it is hard to see why executing an intention should constitute knowing, and how a kind of propositional knowledge could be constituted by a non-propositional attitude, which Chapter Four argued intentions to be. Chapter Six develops NCI into the stronger NPI - Non-Propositionalist Intentionalism. In NPI the non-propositional character of intentions is central. Practical knowledge is a kind of propositional knowledge which is constituted by a non-propositional attitude; a kind of knowledge which is not constituted by belief. I explain how this can be.

There is a conceptual knot at the intersection of moral responsibility and action theory. This knot can be expressed as the following question: What is the relationship between an agent's openness to moral responsibility and the intentional status of her behaviour? My answer to this question is developed in three steps. I first develop a control-backed account of intentional agency, one that borrows vital insights from the cognitive sciences – in the form of Dual Process Theory – in understanding the control condition central to the account, and demonstrate that this account fares at least as well as its rivals in the field. Secondly, I investigate the dominant positions in the discussion surrounding the role of control in moral responsibility. After consideration of some shortcomings of these positions – especially the inability to properly account for so-called ambivalence cases – I defend an alternative pluralist account of moral responsibility, in which there are two co-extant variants of such responsibility: attributability and accountability. The latter of these will be shown to have a necessary control condition, also best understood in terms of a requirement for oversight (rather than conscious or online control), and in terms of the workings of the dual system mechanism. I then demonstrate how these two accounts are necessarily related through the shared role of this kind of control, leading to my answer to the original question: if an agent is open to moral accountability based on some activity or outcome, this activity or outcome must necessarily have positive intentional status. I then apply this answer in a consideration of certain cases of the use of the Doctrine of Double Effect.

Les actions motrices humaines peuvent être envisagées comme étant soit volontaires, c'est-à-dire intérieurement déclenchées afin d’atteindre un certain but, soit réactives, c'est-à-dire extérieurement déclenchées par des stimuli environnementaux. Cette dissociation a notamment été proposée au sein de la théorie idéomotrice suggérant que la réalisation d'actions volontaires repose sur notre capacité à prédire les conséquences sensorielles de nos actions, grâce aux associations action-effet qui sont acquises avec l'expérience. Selon les modèles computationnels tels que le principe de minimisation de l’énergie libre, la prédiction sensorielle est également considérée comme un processus majeur de la perception et du contrôle moteur, indépendamment du type d’action. Dès lors, les études visant à explorer la prédiction sensorielle liée au contrôle moteur ont systématiquement minimisé la distinction potentielle entre deux types d'actions plus ou moins indépendantes. Dans la présente thèse, nous nous sommes principalement attelés à tester la théorie idéomotrice originale qui suggère une implication supérieure de la prédiction sensorielle dans les actions intentionnelles par rapport à des actions plus réactives. Nous avons réalisé ce travail selon trois axes : (1) À travers des expériences comportementales, nous avons cherché à préciser à quel(s) stade(s) moteur(s) la prédiction de l'effet de l'action pouvait être associée, dans les actions intentionnelles d’une part et dans les actions davantage réactives d’autre part, afin de pouvoir dissocier la dynamique temporelle de la prédiction sensorielle au sein de ces deux catégories d'actions. (2) En tirant parti des postulats dérivés des approches computationnelles, nous avons utilisé l'EEG pour explorer d'abord le niveau d'erreur de prédiction liée aux effets sensoriels imprévisibles ou mal-prédits afin de dissocier ces deux types d'événements non prédits au niveau neural. Par la suite, nous avons étudié si les marqueurs EEG de la prédiction sensorielle (c'est-à-dire l'erreur de prédiction et l'atténuation sensorielle) étaient modulés par le type d'action déclenchant l'effet sensoriel. (3) Enfin, nous avons examiné si des variations dans le processus de prédiction des effets de l'action pouvaient être associés à certains déficits moteurs dans la maladie de Parkinson et à des tendances impulsives mesurées chez des participants sains, pour éventuellement conférer une dimension clinique au processus de prédiction sensorielle. Nos résultats ont démontré (1) que la dynamique temporelle de la prédiction des effets de l'action semble effectivement dépendre du type d'action, en étant liée aux étapes précoces et tardives de la préparation motrice des actions intentionnelles, mais seulement aux étapes tardives de la préparation motrice des actions réactives. Nous avons également montré que (2) les événements mal prédits généraient une erreur de prédiction plus importante comparativement à des événements imprévisibles. Par ailleurs, les marqueurs EEG de la prédiction sensorielle étaient plus prononcés pour les effets auditifs déclenchés par des actions intentionnelles par rapport aux effets auditifs déclenchés par des actions réactives. Enfin, nos résultats ont permis de démontrer que (3) le processus de prédiction sensorielle semble être altéré lors de la réalisation d’actions intentionnelles chez des patients atteints de la maladie de Parkinson, et que les marqueurs EEG de la prédiction d’effets auditifs déclenchés par des actions intentionnelles sont modulés par les tendances impulsives d’individus sains. Dans l'ensemble, nos résultats soutiennent l’existence d’une dissociation fonctionnelle entre actions intentionnelle et réactive, et sont également cohérents avec la version originale de la théorie idéomotrice étant donné que la prédiction sensorielle semble être impliquée plus tôt et plus fortement dans les actions intentionnelles que dans les actions réactives. (…) / Motor actions can be classified as being either intention-based, i.e. internally triggered in order to reach a certain goal, or either stimulus-driven, i.e. externally triggered in order to accommodate to environmental events. This elementary dissociation was notably theorized within the original ideomotor theory stating that performing intention-based actions relies on our capacity to predict the sensory consequences of our actions, due to action-effect associations learnt through experience. In recent neurocomputational models such as the brain free-energy principle, this sensory prediction is considered as a key process of overall sensorium and motor control, regardless the action type. Henceforth, experiments studying sensory prediction related to motor control have systematically minimized the potential distinction between two more or less independent action types. In the current thesis, we mainly attempted to address this issue by testing the original ideomotor viewpoint, suggesting a superior involvement of action-effect prediction in intention-based actions compared to more reactive actions. We achieved this work according to three axes: (1) Through behavioural experiments, we aimed at clarifying which motor stage(s) action-effect prediction is related to, within intention-based actions and within stimulus-driven actions, in order to potentially dissociate the temporal dynamics of action-effect prediction in these two categories of actions. (2) Taking advantage from assumptions derived from neurocomputational approaches, we used EEG to first explore the level of prediction error related to unpredicted vs. mispredicted auditory events in order to dissociate these two types of nonpredicted events at a neural level. Then, we investigated whether EEG markers of sensory prediction (i.e., prediction error and sensory attenuation) were modulated by the kind of action triggering the sensory effect. (3) Finally, we intended to examine whether action-effect prediction variations could be linked to motor deficits in Parkinson's disease on the one hand, and to impulsivity tendencies in healthy participants on the other hand, for possibly yielding a clinical dimension to the sensory prediction process. Our findings demonstrated (1) the temporal dynamics of action-effect prediction seems to depend on the action kind, being linked to both early and late stages of motor preparation of intention-based actions and only to late stages of motor preparation of stimulus-driven actions. We also showed that (2) mispredicted events were linked to enhanced prediction error compared to unpredicted events, and that EEG markers of sensory prediction were more pronounced for auditory effects triggered by intention-based actions compared to auditory effects triggered by stimulus-driven actions. Then, our results sustained that (3) the action-effect prediction process seems to be impaired for intention-based actions in Parkinson's disease, and that EEG markers of sensory prediction for effects triggered by intention-based actions are modulated by impulsiveness tendencies in healthy participants. Altogether, our findings are consistent with the original version of the ideomotor theory given the action-effect prediction appeared to be earlier and stronger involved in intention-based actions compared to stimulus-driven actions. Our EEG data also modernized the ideomotor principle, reconciling it with neurocomputational approaches of sensory prediction. Finally, the clinical exploration of the action-effect prediction process in pathologies affecting motor control appeared promising to understand intermediate neurocognitive processes which are involved in motor symptoms or characteristics.

Η “καθιερωμένη θεώρηση για την πράξη”, όντας δεσμευμένη σε ένα ευρύτερο νατουραλιστικό μοντέλο, κατανοεί την πράξη ως “επιμέρους συμβάν”, το οποίο προκαλείται αιτιακά από συγκεκριμένες νοητικές καταστάσεις. Σ’ αυτό το πλαίσιο, η αιτιακή επίδραση της πρόθεσης υπάγεται στο σύνηθες χιουμιανό μοντέλο της αιτιότητας μεταξύ συμβάντων. Ωστόσο, η εν λόγω θεώρηση αποτυγχάνει ουσιωδώς να ερμηνεύσει τις πράξεις στην εξέλιξή τους, πριν δηλαδή να διαμορφωθεί το απαιτούμενο (από το χιουμιανό μοντέλο) εξατομικευμένο συμβάν. Το γεγονός αυτό έχει ευρύτερες επιπτώσεις για τον τρόπο με τον οποίο αντιλαμβάνεται η εν λόγω προσέγγιση τόσο την έννοια της πρόθεσης, όσο και κατ’ επέκταση το ρόλο του δρώντος. Στην παρούσα εργασία και με αφορμή κυρίως πρόσφατες εργασίες από τους Hornsby και Crowther, επιχειρηματολογώ σχετικά με το ότι μπορούμε να υιοθετήσουμε μια εναλλακτική προσέγγιση, τόσο για την οντολογία της πράξης, όσο και για την πρόθεση, η οποία δίνει ικανοποιητικότερες απαντήσεις στις ανωτέρω προκλήσεις. Κεντρική θέση στα πλαίσια αυτής της προσέγγισης είναι η αναγνώριση της “δραστηριότητας” ως συγκροτησιακού στοιχείου της πράξης, κατά τη διάρκεια της οποίας η αιτιακή συμβολή του δρώντος παραμένει συνεχής, σε συμφωνία με μια αριστοτελικού τύπου προσέγγιση της αιτιότητας. Όι παραδοχές αυτές οδηγούν σε μια θεώρηση της πρόθεσης ως καθοδηγητικής της πράξης καθόλη τη διάρκεια εξέλιξής της. / The “standard story of action” being committed to a broader naturalistic model, understands action as a “particular event”, which is caused by certain mental states. In this context, the causal efficacy of intention is covered by the standard humean model of causality between events. Nevertheless, the story in question substantially fails to give an account for actions as they develop, that is, before the required (by the humean model) individuated event has been formed. That fact has broader effects on the way that the approach in question understands the concept of intention, and ultimately the role of the agent. In this thesis, following mainly on recent papers by Hornsby and Crowther, I argue that we can endorse an alternate approach regarding the ontology of action, as well as intention, that gives more adequate answers to the challenges mentioned above. The main thesis in this context is to recognize “activity” as a constitutional element of action, during which the causal efficacy of the agent remains ongoing, in accordance with an aristotelian type of approach to causality. These commitments result in recognizing intention as guiding action throughout the whole of its development.