Olsen - Knowledge of Ones Own Intentioanl Actions

8/3/2019 Olsen - Knowledge of Ones Own Intentioanl Actions

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Knowledge of One's Own Intentional ActionsAuthor(s): Christopher OlsenReviewed work(s):Source: The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 77 (Oct., 1969), pp. 324-336Published by: Blackwell Publishing for The Philosophical QuarterlyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2217844 .Accessed: 30/12/2011 07:34

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324

KNOWLEDGE OF ONE'S OWNINTENTIONAL ACTIONS

BY CHRISTOPHER LSEN

In recent years a greatly increased interest has been shown in the conceptof human action. Not surprisingly, one of the recurring problems has beento give an account of the knowledge we have of our own actions. It is recog-nized that this knowledge is generally different in certain important respectsfrom the knowledge we have of other things, including the actions of otherpeople. And often it is said that in at least the case of our present inten-tional actions we have non-observational knowledge of what we are doing,or that our knowledge is not based on evidence. While this commonlyaccepted doctrine of " knowledge without observation " may have the meritof telling us what kind of knowledge we do not have, this is also its greatweakness; for it fails to give any positive indication of what kind of know-ledge we do have. The main object of this paper will therefore be to discussthe nature of the

knowledgethat a

personhas of his own observable inten-

tional actions.The paper divides naturally into two sections. In the first I shall argue

that if someone's action is to be classified as intentional under the givendescription(s), then there must be a non-contingent relation between hisperforming that action and his knowing what he is doing under its intentionaldescription(s). In the second section I shall argue that only if the personhas a certain (unique) kind of knowledge of his action could this non-contingent relation obtain. I shall also show that observation can be

significantly involved in a person's knowledge of his own intentional actions;but that when it is, it cannot be because he has made observations that heknows what he is doing.

1. CAN WE NOT KNOW?1.1 It would generally be agreed, I believe, that it is not merely a

contingent fact that when a person is performing an intentional action, heknows what action he is performing. This could be taken to mean-as Ithink it should-that there is a necessary, conceptual, connection between a

person's performing an intentional action and his knowing what it is thathe is doing. Of course, not all of a person's actions are intentional. Thus, Iam not claiming that it is always the case that a person necessarily knowswhat he is doing; nor even that there is a necessary connection, when hedoes know, between his knowing and his performing an action which is notintentional. However, I shall argue that if a person's action is intentional,then he cannot not know what action he is doing-mainly on the groundthat any facts which establish that he does not know what he is doing


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KNOWLEDGE OF ONE'S OWN INTENTIONAL ACTIONS 325

would also show that his action is not intentional under the given descrip-tion. More positively, I shall argue that grounds for claiming that an actionis intentional are also grounds for claiming that the agent knows he is doingthat action. The claim that there is a

necessaryconnection between

knowingand doing must therefore be understood purely as a logical (" grammatical ")claim about intentional action, by which I mean that it concerns the rangeof the term 'intentional action '. In other words, this conceptual claim has

nothing to do with infallibility or incorrigibility, but only with what canbe classified or counted as an intentional action.

For there are, of course, a number of ways in which a person can bemistaken about, or not know, what he is doing. He can think he is doingsomething when he is not; he can simply not realize that he is doing some-

thing when he is; he can claim that he is doing something that he is notdoing; and he can make various types of mistakes in describing what he is

doing. I shall limit my own discussion of " mistakes "1 to a considerationof certain apparent exceptions to my stated view that if a person does notknow what he is doing, then his action cannot be classified as intentionalunder the given description. It should be mentioned, however, that his action

may still be intentional under some other true description; so it is essentialto be specific about which (true) description the action is being broughtunder when determining whether or not it is to be classified as an inten-

tional action. For when we describe an action, we are not (as has oftenbeen said) describing merely a set of bodily movements. The description ofa human event as an action goes beyond description of a mere pattern of

bodily movement-a description of which could be context-independent-by setting the event in a certain context. It would be a lengthy and complexinquiry in itself properly to show how action is bound up with its description;but it is important here to stress that an action cannot be seen as the actionit is apart from the circumstances in which it is performed, nor independentlyof its background context of social relations and conventions, both particularand general. The internal relation which obtains between an action andthe context and circumstances, which determine what action the person'sbodily movements constitute, is taken into consideration by the particulardescription(s), as a certain action, that correctly applies (apply) in thosecircumstances. Thus, if a person knows what action he is doing, i.e., if heknows the description under which he is acting, then he will know the

important features of the circumstances, relevant to that description, inwhich his action is being performed. And, this is an important factor in

determiningwhether his action is intentional. This

said,we can

now turnto

consider the relation between knowledge and intentional action.

'Miss Betty Powell discusses mistakes about one's actions in the second half ofChapter VII of Knowledge of Actions (London, 1967). Frederick Broadie, in " KnowingThat I Am Doing ", The Philosophical Quarterly, XVII (1967), pp. 137-149, assertsthat his main interest is in " whether we can be mistaken when we take ourselves toknow that we are doing [some action] ". Stuart Hampshire, in Thought and Action(London, 1959), has much to say about verbal mistakes. He seems to think that thisis the only kind of mistake an agent can make. (See pp. 95 f., 121 f., and Chapter 2passim.)


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326 OHRISTOPHER OLSEN

To begin, what might make us think that a person does not know whataction he is doing? Many things, of course. Often it will be his behaviourbefore and/or after the action in question. Perhaps we can't see why he

would ever have knowingly done that, considering what else he has justdone. On the other hand, it may be the way he does the action, or evensimply that he is doing that action (" Surely no one would do that if heknew he was doing it! "), which make us wonder whether he knows. Wemight then ask the person if he knows what he is doing, or ask him why heis doing so-and-so. If he sincerely professes unawareness of doing thataction under that description (e.g., by saying, " I didn't realize that I wasdoing that "), or if he truthfully claims that he thought he was doing some-thing else, then we generally withdraw the imputation that his action was

intentional under the description we first applied. We might say that hedidn't do X intentionally, or that his doing X must have been unintentional.This does not mean, of course, that he didn't do X. The description maystill truly apply with qualification.

But we do not always withdraw the implication that the person's actionis intentional in such situations. Sometimes we are justified in thinkingthat the action is intentional even though there are also good reasons forthinking that the agent does not know he is doing that action. In thefollowing two sub-sections I shall discuss two of the more difficult types of

situation in which it is not obvious that the agent knows what he is doing,either (a) because he is apparently not aware that such-and-such a descrip-tion (under which his action is said to be intentional) applies to his action;or (b) because he refuses, apparently quite sincerely, to agree that his actionis intentional under such-and-such a description because of a firm beliefthat some other, incompatible, description is true of what he is doing.

1.2 The first case is that of John P, a student in a senior Latin classtaught by an attractive young teacher in her first year of teaching. In herclass John tends to whisper occasionally, thumb through his textbook some-what noisily at times, and raise his hand to questions even when he is notsure of the answer. He makes certain that he is the first to arrive in theclassroom and the last to leave. He even studies his Latin more industriouslythan before; and his homework is always done. Let us suppose that heknows he is doing all of these things : he would not deny doing any one ofthem if asked. One day an observant classmate casually asks him if he istrying to make her notice him; to which he replies just as casually and

quite sincerely, "Not that I was aware of ". This sincere avowal, plus hisprior behaviour including his lack of embarrassment (which he generallyshows in the presence of girls he likes) when talking to her, plus a knowledgeof his character, are all grounds for believing that he is not lying or tryingto cover up; and are therefore good reasons for thinking he does not knowthat the description ' trying to make her notice him ' applies to his behaviour.

Nonetheless, we should also be inclined to think that somehow his be-haviour is intentional under this description, for the following reasons.


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First, there is a fairly clear pattern to his behaviour, which he would easilyrecognize-although there being a pattern would not alone warrant theclaim that his action is intentional. Secondly, let us say that he readily

admits (with some embarrassment) to trying to make the new teacher noticehim, once a few pertinent questions are asked, or once he is reminded of afew relevant facts (e.g., the various things he knows he is doing). Thoughnothing he doesn't already know, in some sense, is conveyed to him, itsuddenly becomes clear to him that this is what he is doing. Thirdly, itmight be suggested by someone with psychoanalytic predilections that hisinitial expression of ignorance is also a reason for thinking that his trying tomake her notice him is intentional. Individually, these reasons would notbe sufficient to justify classifying his action as intentional under that

description; but considered together in the general context of this situation,they provide excellent reasons for so classifying his action. We might wellsay, in this instance, that his trying to make her notice him was uncon-sciously intentional, even without begging any of the issues of psycho-analytic theory.

In view of these facts, can we continue to think that he did not knowwhat he was really doing when he was first asked ? He did, after all, knowhe was doing the various actions which add up to trying to make her noticehim; he does know that such behaviour would normally catch a teacher's

attention; and he didn't need to be told anything he did not already know.In other words, there is a sense in which he did know all along what he wasdoing. The original reasons for thinking he did not know were not conclusivereasons because the main grounds for saying that his trying to make hernotice him is intentional, when these are brought to light, are also groundsfor saying that in some sense he does know that this is what he is doing.It is just that he wasn't unreflectively aware that this description applies;for had he fully realized what his behaviour amounted to, he probablywould not have continued, or at least not quite in that way. This is whywe could speak of his having had an unconscious intention to make hernotice him. But if we do say this, we could also speak of his having un-conscious knowledge of doing this, andfor many of the same reasons. A personis not always aware of everything that he can correctly be said to know.

Alternatively, we could say that he just hadn't thought of his actionin that way when he was first asked; and this would account both for hissincere reply to his classmate's question and for the other behaviour thatmade us think this a truthful reply. On general grounds, I do not think itcould be maintained that

knowingentails a

person's entertaininga

certaindescription of the action he is doing, or that it entails his consciously thinkingof it in a certain way. It does perhaps entail his being able to recognize acorrect description of his action without having to acquire new informationabout it beyond what he already knows.

1.3 The second case is that of a man who refuses to accept as true adescription of his action under which it is said to be intentional. Mr. Fox


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328 CHRISTOPHER OLSEN

is the assistant supervisor of a project that is not going well. He is asked to

prepare a confidential report on it. His report, which is frank and truthful,makes an open attempt to absolve his superior of full blame for the sorrystate of the

project.But at the board

meetingcalled to discuss the

report,one member accuses him of making the project supervisor appear incompetentso that he would lose his position. Mr. Fox stoutly denies this, claiming thathe is only presenting the facts and that he is really trying to protect the

supervisor's reputation. However, the latter eventually loses his job, andMr. Fox is put in charge.

Was Mr. Fox's action intentional under the accuser's description ?

Perhaps a reading of the report would reveal that underneath the outwardshow of support it is made quite evident that the supervisor was to blame.

Furthermore, Mr. Fox is known to be ambitious; so there is a motive-though finding a possible motive is not in itself sufficient to show that hisaction is intentional under the description which is connected with themotive. Still, Mr. Fox must have known that his report would be incrimin-

ating and that his remarks would not really protect the supervisor. Butwhen all these things are mentioned to him, he again denies that he was

trying to make the other fellow lose his job. If his denial is apparently sin-cere, then it could well be that he is deceiving himself rather than his accusers.One can easily see why he would not want to admit that this was what he

was really doing, even to himself. Supposing this to be a case of self-deception,we now have good grounds for thinking that his contributing to his super-visor's downfall is intentional. But we cannot also say that his doing thiswas deliberately planned, since this would be incompatible with his deceivinghimself about what he is doing. In any case, it would be a mistake to thinkthat all intentional actions are deliberate.

On the other hand, if we say that Mr. Fox is deceiving himself, in virtueof what he must surely know about the whole affair, then we must also beable to say that he really knows what he is doing to the supervisor, even

though he may refuse to believe it himself. For once self-deception is broughtinto the story, knowledge slips in as well; otherwise we could not call it

self-deception. There is no contradiction in saying of someone else that he

firmly believes what he really knows to be false, or that he disbelieves whathe really knows to be true. (Logical oddity arises only when one says thisof oneself.) This is just the sort of conflict state that the self-deceiver is in. Asfor Mr. Fox, barring straight lying and outright hypocrisy (which involveno mistake on his part), unless it can be shown that something like self-

deceptionis

involved,it is difficult to see how else what he denies he is

doing could rightly be held to be intentional. Although he is clearly mistakenin thinking that he is protecting the supervisor and that he is not trying toruin him, it is not that he doesn't know, in some sense, what he is reallydoing. Yet his apparently sincere disavowals gave reason to believe that hedid not. But are they really sincere ? In the sense that he says what hethinks or believes, they are; but in another sense they are not. For whenwe see that these beliefs arise from self-deception, we could rightly accuse


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him of being insincere, since "down deep " he does know otherwise. Itmust be recognized, however, that the knowledge we attribute to him issignificantly different from what might be called " conscious " knowledge,which he would have to

possessif he were

straightforwardly lying. Straightlying is not the only type of insincerity.In sum, these cases of intentional action in which the agent seems not

to know what he is doing under an intentional description do not militateagainst my claim that there is a conceptual connection between knowledgeand intentional action. On the contrary, they can be cited in support of it.For in showing why actions like these should be classified as intentionalactions, we often have to invoke notions such as unconscious intention andself-deception. When we do, we find that we are also providing sufficient

grounds for the claim that the agent knows what action he is doing-eventhough he is not, or will not let himself be, conscious of what he is doingunder the intentional description.

However, it is not the fact merely that the agent does know what he isdoing which establishes that he must know. Rather, it is the fact that thesame grounds which show that an action is intentional also show that theagent knows what action he is performing. This is sufficient to establishthat the relation between knowing and doing, in the case of intentionalaction, is conceptual and not contingent. But this non-contingent relation

can obtain only if the agent's knowledge is of a certain kind, which I shallnow try to elucidate.

2. WHAT KIND OF KNOWLEDGE2.1 In the case of my own present intentional actions, the kind of

knowledge I have is what I shall refer to as knowledge by authorship or

knowledge through authorship. I am, so to speak, the author of the objectof my knowledge, viz., my intentional action. I am the creator of thisaction. But unlike a work of art created by an artist, or a piece of furniture" created " by a cabinetmaker, my actions cannot, logically, be separatedfrom me as a person. My being the author or creator of my own intentionalactions is both the ground of my knowledge of these actions (insofar asone can speak of grounds here at all), and the justification for the claim thatit is knowledge that I possess.

But my knowledge is knowledge by authorship in the required senseonly under certain conditions. First, only if I possess the concept of theparticular action that I am performing (i.e., only if I know what counts as

doingthat

action)could I be said to know that I am

doingthe action under

that description. It is, of course, unusual for a normally intelligent language-user not to possess the concepts of the vast majority of actions that are

performed by himself and by other people with whom he is likely to comein contact. But it is not inconceivable that he should not. The followingstory will illustrate what I mean. In a recent conversation with a friend I

apparently made a certain gesture with, I think, my hands. Afterwards heasked me if I happened to be a Freemason, to which I replied that I was


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not. He explained that a few minutes ago I had done something which hethought he recognized as one of the secret signs of masonry. He refused totell me what the sign was or even to show me what I had done. Even though

I might have made the sign quite perfectly and in appropriate circumstances,my action could not have been intentional under the description 'making themasonic sign of.. .', since I neither knew I was making it nor had anyidea of what counted as making that sign. Nor could I have had the conceptof making that sign unless I had been a Freemason or had made a study ofthe order or had been informed by someone who knew.

Secondly, only if the object of my knowledge, my intentional action, isknown through " creating " it under a certain description (or descriptions)could the connection between knowing and what is known be non-contingent.

Neither mere authorship, in the sense simply of being a " source of change ",nor mere knowledge that I am doing some action would be sufficient for meto have knowledge by authorship in the required sense. I may happen toknock the wineglass off the table (unintentionally) while reaching for thebottle, and thus be the source of change constituted by the change in the

position and state of the wineglass. Furthermore, I may also notice that Iam knocking the glass off the table at the same time as I do it, and thusknow that I am doing this. But even though I know that I am (in some, butnot the requisite, sense) the " author " of this action, it is only because I

happen to find out that I am. My knowing would, in this instance, be nomore than an accidental concomitant of my action. That is, the connectionbetween my knowing and my being the " author " of what I know wouldonly be contingent. I would not have knowledge by authorship, since theconnection between knowing and doing is not established through, or as anessential part of, being the author, the doer of this action.

On the other hand, if I set out to knock the wineglass off the table while

reaching for the bottle (perhaps making it look like an accident), then myknowing becomes an integral part of doing this action under the description'knocking the wineglass off the table '. This is what makes my actionintentional under this description. Thus we might say here that the objectof my knowledge is created so as to fit the description under which I know it.But not every intentional action that I perform do I "set out " to do inthe sense of consciously forming an intention to act. Many of my intentionalactions are just done. Yet my knowledge of even these is still knowledgeof authorship. To see this we can again consider our two cases of unconsciousintention and self-deception (from ? 1) where it might seem least likely thatthis claim would hold true.

According to the two stories, neither John P nor Mr. Fox had to makeobservations in order to know what action he was doing, neither had to betold, and neither had to make inferences from evidence of doing the actions.But we concluded that each, in some sense, knew all along what he wasreally doing. The only other way to account for the knowledge attributedto each of them would be to say that their knowing was already a constituentin the doing of these actions under their respective intentional descriptions,


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KNOWLEDGE OF ONE S OWN INTENTIONAL ACTIONS 331

even though this knowledge was not consciously involved in doing theactions. This accounts not only for their having this knowledge, but also forits being non-contingent, as required. In other words, knowledge and author-

shipare

inextricablyinterwoven in these intentional actions as well as in

others where it is more obvious that they are.To sum up so far : having the concept of the action one is performing is

a necessary condition of knowing; knowing is a necessary condition ofauthorship in the sense required, which means that authorship is a sufficientcondition of knowing what one is doing when this is an intentional action;and authorship, in this sense, is the feature which distinguishes the descrip-tions under which one's action is intentional from those under which it isnot. What distinguishes knowledge of one's own intentional action from all

other kinds of knowledge that one might possess is simply the fact that oneis the author or creator of the object of one's knowledge; and being thecreator, in this case, entails having knowledge of creating what one knows.

2.2 The terminology that I have used in the foregoing sub-section maybe somewhat unusual in this context. For to speak in terms of "author-ship " and " creation " seems to suggest that there is something artistic orcreative about intentional actions that one would not think to associatewith such commonplace, and quite unartistic, occurrences as lighting one's

pipe, unlocking the car door, or eating one's dinner. While not wishing toimply that all or even many of our intentional actions are creative in the senseof being artistic or imaginative, I do feel that in an important, thoughsomewhat broader, sense there is something about performing an intentionalaction that could correctly be called creative. Thus there is some justificationfor employing these particular terms, for they help to focus attention onwhat I consider to be the central feature of intentional action; viz., thenon-contingent relation between performing an intentional action and theagent's knowledge of doing that action. This relation obtains in virtue ofthe agent's intentional action's being his action, the action of that person;as opposed to being merely the action or movements of that body whichjust happens to be his though it might as well have been someone else'sbody as far as his knowledge of what it is doing is concerned.

The feature of " authorship ", as outlined, is most evident in linguisticbehaviour-writing and speaking-where the notion is more at home.Writing a letter, for example, or making a statement, asking a question,promising to come home early tonight, eto., are themselves intentional

actions,of

course;and the

knowledgeone has of

doingthese actions would

therefore provide instances of knowledge by authorship. For this reason thekind of knowledge present in all intentional action cannot be explicatedmerely by reference to knowledge by authorship as exemplified in suchinstances, since they are essentially no different from the knowledge wehave of our other intentional actions-except in the respect that authorshipis more apparent in these actions. The main point, however, of calling thisknowledge " knowledge by authorship ", and of characterizing its features


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in the terms I have used, is to bring into prominence the other significantlydifferent fact (besides its being non-contingent) about knowledge of one'sown intentional action which distinguishes it from other kinds of knowledge.

As I mentioned above, this fact (which also explains why it is non-contingentknowledge) is that the object of this knowledge is originated by the knowerhimself and that it is known through the act of originating (creating) it.

That this terminology should have to be used, coming as it does fromwithin the sphere of intentional action itself, points to one of the majorproblems of trying to give an account of the nature of our knowledge of ourown intentional actions, namely the uniqueness of this knowledge. If it isunique, as I believe it is, then it is a mistake to think that its central featurescould be elucidated by assimilating it to the kinds of knowledge-whether

observational or non-observational-that we can have of things other thanour intentional actions. This is not to say that there are no similaritiesbetween this and other kinds of knowledge, or that nothing can be learnedby drawing analogies where they exist.2 It is only to say that analogy cannothelp us where we are most in the dark. For instance, it should be obviousby now how very different at the crucial point our knowledge of our painsis from our knowledge of our intentional actions in respect of authorshipalone. Whatever the basis of our knowledge of our pains happens to be (ifit can be said to have a basis), it is not authorship. And claiming thatknowledge of the two is similar in respect of its being non-observationaltells us nothing at all about the nature of the knowledge in each case, oreven whether it is the same in any significant positive respect. Likewise, itcan be seen why talking about knowledge of the position of our limbs is notgoing to be enlightening either. For an account of this knowledge eitherpresupposes an account of our knowledge of our intentional actions, sincesometimes we know the position of our limbs because our putting them inthat position was itself an intentional action; or else the account will likelybe too different to be illuminating if, say, it happens to centre on the rolesof feelings of pressure on the limbs and sensations in the joints.3

2.3 I have said nothing so far about how observation is involved inintentional action, and in our knowledge of it; so I shall devote the remainderof the paper to this topic. I shall thereby also be able to elucidate knowledgeby authorship more fully. The question I want to consider is whetherknowledge by authorship, which is not grounded in observation, can beknowledge of what one is actually doing, when one's action is intentional.

2See Keith S. Donnellan's discussion of knowledge without observation in his"Knowing What I Am Doing ", Journal of Philosophy, LX (1963), pp. 401-409. Thisgives an excellent account of the rights and wrongs of assimilating knowledge of ourown intentional actions to the usual paradigms of knowledge of our pains, emotions,beliefs, etc., and knowledge of the position of our limbs.

3See Miss Anscombe's further denial that these would be relevant to an account ofsuch knowledge, in " On Sensations of Position ", Analysis, 22.3 (1962-63), pp. 55-58.This article is both a clarification of her view expressed in ? 8 of Intention (Oxford,1957), and a reply to David Braybrooke's questions for her in the same number ofAnalysis (pp. 49-54).


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This question is most worrisome with regard to observable actions or actionsthat involve bodily movements, which have been my main concern. Fornot only do these actions occur in the perceptible world, but (as I mentionedin

? 1.1)one also has to know certain facts

about the circumstances, and thismay necessitate making observations. In the empiricist/positivist traditionthere is a predisposition to suppose that all knowledge of what takes placein the physical world must ultimately be based on observation. Thus it

might be claimed that one cannot be said to know what one is physicallydoing unless one makes observations; and that knowledge by authorship is

really no more than just knowledge of what one means or intends to be

doing, or of what one is trying to do. It could therefore seem that twokinds of knowledge-one through authorship, the other by observation-

are required in intentional action for it to be true that one knows what oneis doing.4

I shall discuss whether "two kinds of knowledge " are required bynoting the three most important ways in which observation can be involvedin intentional action. It will become clear that none of these could be thesource or ground of one's own knowledge of what one is doing. The first twoare mentioned very briefly because their practical necessity for action isobvious and because they have often been noted before. First, to be ableto act purposively we must possess a general fund of knowledge about how

the world works, so to speak. This ordinary causal knowledge, which isgrounded in observation, is the basis of our knowledge of what in generalit is possible to do, and of what can be effected by doing what. As MissAnscombe puts it, "' Intentional action' always presupposes what mightbe called 'knowing one's way about' . . ." (Intention, p. 88). And Hamp-shire and Hart remark that " the agent must have ordinary empirical know-

ledge of certain features of his environment and of the nature and character-istics of certain things affected by his movements ".5 We rely on this typeof practical knowledge gained from experience for almost every intentionalaction that we perform. But this is general background knowledge, andnot particular knowledge of what one is at present doing, important as itis to doing that action.

Secondly, observation and perception have a very important direct roleto play in the performance of intentional actions. We must generally beable to see, hear, or feel things in the environment in which we act simply

4This is equally a problem for proponents of the doctrine of " knowledge withoutobservation ". Miss Anscombe discusses it illuminatingly at various points in Intention.(See ? 29, and pp. 57, 81 and 88.) It is not clear, however, that she feels she has found

a satisfactory answer to the " two knowledges " problem; unless she means her state-ment, " Thus in any operation we really can speak of two knowledges . . ." (p. 88),to apply to all (intentional) actions. If so, I must disagree. It will be obvious that Iam greatly indebted to Miss Anscombe's writings at various places in my paper. Inparticular, the problem set for these final two sub-sections derives from the first para-graph of ? 29 of Intention. There are actually two separate, but closely related, problemshere; viz., whether there are " two ways of knowing ", and whether there are " twoobjects of knowledge " in intentional action. For the purposes of my paper it will beenough to consider the first only, and to show that only one kind of knowledge is bothnecessary and sufficient for it to be true that one knows what action one is in fact doing.

5" Decision, Intention and Certainty ", Mind, LXVII (1958), p. 8.


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in order to do what we do. For instance, I have to see where my typewriteris and to feel the keys in order to type this paper; I have to hear my radioor look at the tuning meter in order to tune it to the station I want, and so

on.To use Brian

O'Shaughnessy's apt phrase,the normal role of

perceptionhere is that of " handmaid to action ": perception functions as a " stagesetter " for my actions.6 Miss Anscombe also takes note of this role when shediscusses her writing example on page 53 of Intention. The extent to whichI need to make observations or to make use of the senses will depend verymuch on what action I am performing and on how adept I am at performingit. I don't need to see, feel, or hear anything in order to talk; though I

usually do hear and feel something. But there are many actions that I

just could not perform, no matter how adept I am, unless I could see what

I am doing, where I am going, and where things are. However, the observa-tions I make do not have the function of informing me of what action I am

doing when my action is intentional.

2.4 The third important role that observation may have is that of

confirming that I am doing what I think I am doing. Sometimes I have tomake observations to find out whether I am doing or have done my inten-tional action, especially if the action involves more than just the movementsI make with

my bodyor with

partsof it. In normal circumstances I do not

have to make any observations to know that I am signalling a right turn

(by hand), smoking my pipe, walking into the room, or making a promise.However, I may have to make certain observations to know that I am

actually hitting the "h " key on my typewriter, making the girl blush bywinking at her, or clearing the obstruction by setting off the dynamite charge.

There is a subtle, but very important, distinction between knowingwhat action I am doing7 and knowing that I am doing it, i.e., that it is gettingdone. In the case of my intentional actions, the former is always independent

of observation, while the latter may sometimes require observation. I haveargued that only if my knowledge of what I am doing is knowledge byauthorship could the connection between knowing and doing be non-

contingent, as required in intentional action. This means that observationcannot be the ground of my knowledge of what I am doing, for two reasons.

First, observational knowledge is always contingent knowledge : there is no

necessary connection between the occurrence of any event and anyone'sobserving it to occur. Secondly, if I already know through authorship whataction I am doing, observation is logically'precluded as a means of comingto know-as is every other means of coming to know-what I am doingunder its intentional description, since I cannot, logically, come to know ordiscover that which I already know.

6" Observation and the Will ", Journal of Philosophy, LX (1963), pp. 374 f.; repr.in Philosophy of Mind, ed. Hampshire.

7This is not merely what I mean to be doing or what I am trying to do, but what Iam doing. The distinction I am making here should not be confused with a similar-looking one made by Donnellan (op. cit., p. 408) between what I mean to be doing andwhat I am in fact doing.


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Documents

Olsen - Knowledge of Ones Own Intentioanl Actions