Life Interrupted:
Akrasia, Action, & Anscombe

Candace Vogler (Chair)
Gabriel Richardson Lear
Martha Nussbaum
Agnes Callard

I claim that, at present, no one working in Anglophone philosophy has provided a satisfactory account of akrasia. Taking up the nearly universally accepted anatomy of akratic action (i.e. free, intentional action, done for a reason), I maintain that contemporary explanations undermine our ability to see akratic action as a genuine practical failure and so undermine our ability to see akratic action as such.

In my dissertation I introduce considerations that suggest a problem for the representation of akratic action and develop arguments to show how contemporary accounts run afoul of their own ambitions. I suggest that the root of this philosophical trouble lies in part at the intersection of a nexus of practical concepts, i.e. action, practical reason, and intention. In particular, I argue that Anglophone philosophers have misunderstood the relation between thought and action.

Taking my cue from the work of Elizabeth Anscombe, I claim that in order to understand akrasia as a practical failure we must attend to the relation between these concepts in the way that she taught us. If I am right in directing our attention to the representation of akratic action, then nearly everyone else writing on akrasia is wrong.

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: The New Problem of Akratic Action

Chapter 3: Practically Akratic

Chapter 4: How to Change a Mind

Chapter 5: The Vertical Break

Chapter 6: Varieties of Akrasia