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Anscombe, Elizabeth. Intention
, London: Harvard University Press.
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Added by: Jie Gao
Summary: Three core problems about intention are discussed: (i) expressions of intention; (ii) the intentional or non-intentional character of action; (iii) the intention of an action, or with which it is done. The book attempts to show in detail that the natural and widely accepted picture of what we mean by an intention gives rise to insoluble problems and must be abandoned.

Comment: Intention is one of the masterworks of the twentieth-century philosophy in English. Donald Davidson, for instance, has called it the most important philosophical work on action since Aristotle. It is a must-have for courses on philosophy of action and philosophy of mind (broadly construed). As other classics, it is a book that is not easy to understand. It might be a good idea to supplement it with some guide or notes.

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Brown, Jessica. Subject­-Sensitive Invariantism and the Knowledge Norm for Practical Reasoning
2008 2008, Nous 42(2): 167-189.
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Added by: Jie Gao
Introduction: It is increasingly popular to suggest that knowledge is the norm of practical reasoning, or reasoning about what to do (e.g. Hawthorne 2004, Stanley 2005). This idea is central to the defence of a new version of invariantism - 'subject-sensitive invariantism' - on which whether the true belief that p is knowledge not only depends on such factors as one's evidence, and the reliability of the belief-producing process, but also the stakes or how important it is that p be true (the view is also known as 'sensitive moderate invariantism' (Hawthorne 2004) and 'interest relative invariantism' (Stanley 2005)). I will argue against the idea that knowledge is the norm of practical reasoning, whether that is understood as a necessity or sufficiency claim. Instead, I will argue that the epistemic standards for practical reasoning vary contextually.

Comment: This paper nicely elucidates the debates on pragmatic encroachment in epistemology and presents main objections to the knowledge norm of practical reasoning. It is useful for teachings on pragmatic encroachment and the knowledge norm of practical reasoning in an upper-level undergraduate course on epistemology.

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