Intention G.E.M Anscombe Post 1

I began reading G.E.M. Anscombe's short book Intention with excitement. Most of my knowledge of philosophy comes from ethics, which is concerned with the rightness and wrongness of action. Anscombe's Intention, alternatively, can be described as a book about "action theory," or the study of human bodily movement. Intention is not about the psychological or biological aspects of action, but rather about the linguistics of statements of intention like "I am going to take a walk," and more broadly about the categorization of actions. As the title entails, Anscombe's book discusses the intentions behind actions. However, this topic, at least in Anscombe's eyes, is far more complex than one would expect.

Anscombe does not hesitate to introduce the complexity of her theory about intention. She starts the text with "Very often, when a man says ' I am going to do suchand-such ', we should say that this was an expression of intention. We also sometimes speak of an action as intentional, and we may also ask with what intention the thing was done" (1). Already, Anscombe introduces three concepts of intention that must be dealt with separately, but are all also intimately connected. These three forms of intention, however, are not quickly clarified by Anscombe. Her writing style is peculiar, as it seems as if Anscombe is writing to clarify her own thoughts, instead of explaining them. Most philosophers start with a claim, justify it, and then respond to objections. Anscombe, however, will start with a claim, justify it, point out some insufficiency in explanatory power or a counter-example, and then start with a more nuanced claim to repeat the process. While some readers may prefer this style because it presents philosophical thought in a more organic structure (one usually starts with an argument, notices problems, and modifies the claim), I have found it somewhat confusing and in some places annoying. This style makes it difficult for me to identify her argument and understand where she's going with some particular line of reasoning.

Despite Anscombe's writing style, I've been able to gleam a great deal from what she argues about intention. Anscombe clarifies what it means for an action to be "intentional." She argues that intentional actions "are the actions to which a certain sense of the question ' Why? ' is given application" (9). By this Anscombe means that an action is intentional if it makes sense to ask why an agent took such an action. The question "why?" used in this context is not asking for merely the cause of an action, but for an internal reason of an agent that in turn causes an action. For Anscombe, all actions fit under this category, except three types actions. Anscombe identifies these actions through linguistic means, identifying them by the response an actor would give when prompted with the question "why?". The first category encompasses those actions for which someone would answer "'I was not aware I was doing that'" (25). For instance, if one were to ask a person "why are you making a squeaky noise with the saw," the question "why?" would have no application if the person realized that they were sawing, but did not realize that the saw was making such a noise. One cannot have a reason for doing something that they didn't realize they were doing in the first place. The second category encompasses those actions for which someone would answer something to imply "I observed that I was doing that" (25). For instance, when a doctor initiates a patient's patellar reflex, they are aware that they are moving their leg, but cannot explain why they are moving their leg, as it is merely a reaction continuously experienced. The third category is extremely confusing to me. Anscombe explains her idea in the following passage:

"There was a third circumstance as well, in which the question would have no application: namely that in which the action is somehow characterised as one in which there is no room for what I called mental causality. This would come out if for example the only way in which a question as to cause was dealt with was to speculate about it, or to give reasons why such and such should be regarded as the cause. E.g. if one said ' What made you jump like that? ' when someone had just jerked with the spasm which one sometimes gets as one is dropping off to sleep, he would brush aside the question or say ' It was involuntary you know, the way one does sometimes jump like that" (25).

This seems misdirected, as any action where one would have to speculate about the cause must either be an action one is not aware that they were doing, or one that they have no control over and can only observe, like a reflex. Anscombe's example would fit the latter category, as one has no control over jumping when they are falling asleep, but they can still observe it. It seems as if this discrepancy between knowledge of action and knowledge of cause just results in the third response, and this response is not of a different type than the other two.