Journal article
Intentions and Inquiry
Mind, Vol.134(533), pp.85-106
01/20/2025
DOI: 10.1093/mind/fzae056
Abstract
This paper defends the Intention Account of Individual Inquiry. On this account, inquiry is best understood by appeal to a 'question-directed intention' (QDI), an intention to answer a question broadly construed. This account's core commitments help meet recent challenges plaguing extant approaches to characterizing inquiry. First, QDIs are the type of mental state central to inquiry, not attitudes like curiosity or wonder. Second, holding a QDI towards a question and acting in service of it constitutes the start of inquiry. Third, controversial norms which mandate a rational inquirer's ignorance towards the answer to her question can be reformulated and defended by appeal to rational constraints on intention. Fourth, instrumental pressures inquirers face are the standard pressures of plan-rationality. In defending these theses, I show that the Intention Account provides compelling explanations to standing challenges, in ways competitors cannot. It does so by advancing understanding of how our epistemic and practical agency are intertwined.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Intentions and Inquiry
- Creators
- Daniel C. Friedman - Stanford University
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Mind, Vol.134(533), pp.85-106
- DOI
- 10.1093/mind/fzae056
- ISSN
- 0026-4423
- eISSN
- 1460-2113
- Publisher
- Oxford Univ Press
- Number of pages
- 22
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 01/20/2025
- Academic Unit
- Philosophy
- Record Identifier
- 9984948144802771
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