Yes. You did mention him. I found some of his papers on researchgate.net, to which I also belong. This guy is older than me!! How can that be?

I'm not conversant with his areas of expertise and that is usually a substantial impediment in mathematics. But I appreciate you pointing him out. :smile:

Born in 1932, that makes him 90 this year. When I found his book, I emailed him and got a nice reply - about July last year. His book has gone under the radar, because he's not known in philosophy or cog sci, so I don't think it received a lot of attention, which is a pity - deserves it.

Firstly, what makes you think that there is an objective matter of fact as to whether an effect was intended or accidental? Secondly, if there are such facts, then what do those facts consist of? — sime

It doesn't matter as to whether there is such an objective matter of fact. What matters is that it's a useful distinction which demonstrates your model as faulty. The example demonstrates this. The man walks for the purpose of health. Health is the man's purpose for walking. If the man then proceeds to get an injury and dies from walking, we cannot conclude that getting sick and dying was the purpose of his walking, because this is contrary to his true purpose.

That it is a "subjective fact" that he was walking for his health, rather than an objective fact, is irrelevant to the reality of the situation. And as philosophers, what we are trying to understand is the reality of the situation. We are not attempting to constrain "reality" to objective fact, when reality also consists of subjective facts.

If we narrowly interpret the meaning of an "intention" as referring only to the agent's internal state, , then intentions as such cannot be teleological, for the agent's actions are explainable without final causes. — sime

No the actions are not explainable without final cause. That's the point to the example of accidents. Such an explanation would be wrong, like in a court of law when they demonstrate from the physical evidence that the perpetrator's intentions were X, when in reality the intentions were Y. The explanation is wrong, plain and simple.

So in order for intentions to be considered teleological, one must consider both what is going on inside the agent as well as the environmental effects that the agent's behaviour produces, - effects which play no causal role in the agent's history of decision-making. Yet this understanding of 'intentionality' as a type of relationship between the agent's behaviour and the environmental biproducts of his actions, in turn implies that the agent is fallible with regards to knowing what his intentions are. For who now gets to decide what the agent truly intended? — sime

Again, this is wrong. The environmental effects produced ny the intentional action cannot enter into a true understanding of the agent's intentions, because they mislead, as I just explained. The only things which can enter into such a determination are the precedent conditions. This is the only way to give a true representation of the position which the agent is in at the time. The agent, at the time does not have access to the outcome of the actions being deliberated on, therefore in understanding the agent's mind-set (intentions) at that time we cannot allow the outcome of the agent's actions to influence our judgement, because the outcome might be totally inconsistent with the intention, as explained. This becomes extremely relevant when the agent's intent is to deceive. In this case, the actions are intended to mislead.

Note that the problem of "Inverse Reinforcement Learning" is the problem of inferring an agent's overall goals from a history of the agent's behaviour, including the environmental consequences it's actions. It is a chicken-and-egg paradox; In order for observers to estimate an agent's overall goals given a history of it's behaviour, they must assume that the effects of the agent's actions were in accordance with it's intentions, that is to say, they must assume that the agent is an expert who understands his environment. But how can it be known whether the agent is an expert? Only by assuming what the agent's goals are :)

This implies that teleological concepts are either semantically or epistemically under-determined. — sime

Yes, this is exactly the problem. That teleological concepts are "under-determined" is very obvious to me, because of the subjective nature. Is it not obvious to you?

Therefore, in the event that Alice decides not to press the button, i.e. that event NOT A occurs, shouldn't Alice be open to the possibility that her decision not to press A was the effect of Bob deciding on NOT B 'before' Alice made her decision? — sime

No, if Alice believes that pushing A will cause Bob to push B, as your premise states, then there is no stated premise which denies Bob from pushing B even without Alice pushing A. You'd need to state that B occurs if and only if A. But then B is completely dependent (causally) on A, and there is no indication that not B could cause not A, as this would require a reversal of the dependence, and there is no statement of A if and only if B. Therefore Alice is continually free to push A at any moment of time, and the fact that Bob has not yet pushed B has no relevance because Alice's choice is dependent on something else.

Hence, real, but not corporeal. Which is why it is incompatible with naturalism and empiricism. — Wayfarer

This is not true in my view. Not all empirical phenomena are corporeal. A rainbow is not corporeal, for example. An atom, an electron, a photon, a quark—corporeal?

And also relations and functions are not corporeal, in the sense of being being embodied or objects of the senses, even though they may be instantiated as or in a series of discernible material states.

A rainbow is not corporeal, — Janus

Corporeal definition - of the nature of the physical body; bodily.
material; tangible:
corporeal property.

Rainbows comprise light refracted through water droplets. Nothing incorporeal about that.

relations and functions are not corporeal, — Janus

Part of my point.

A rainbow is not corporeal, — Janus


Corporeal definition - of the nature of the physical body; bodily.
material; tangible:
corporeal property.

Rainbows comprise light refracted through water droplets. Nothing incorporeal about that.

relations and functions are not corporeal, — Janus


Part of my point. — Wayfarer

The point was that there is no body of the rainbow: it is not tangible, cannot be bodily felt, even in the subtle way that clouds can be felt.. It looks like it is a corporeal object, but it is a purely optical phenomenon.

As I said about relations and functions or processes, they are entirely comprised of series of observable physical states, yet they are not, taken as a whole, corporeal objects, yet they are entirely physical. If you want to say that a relation, process or function is not physical then you should be able to identify their non-physical components.

The eye is a sense organ, as much as touch, and a rainbow a physical phenomenon. I might have erred using that rather quaint word ‘corporeal’ as a synonym for physical, as it seems to have its own connotations.

As for whether relations and the like are ‘entirely physical’ - I would call that into question also. Consider the models of mathematical physics - insofar as they are mathematical models, then they synthesise physical observations into a mathematical and rational framework. And the question of the nature and unreasonable efficacy of mathematics in the natural sciences is the point at issue.