O MacGuffin: ANSCOMBE, G.E.M. (outra vez)

quinta-feira, novembro 18, 2004

ANSCOMBE, G.E.M. (outra vez)

Another false avenue of escape is to say that I really ‘do’ in the intentional sense whatever I think I am doing. E.g. if I think I am moving my toe, but it is not actually moving, then I am ‘moving my toe’ in a certain sense, and as for what happens, of course I haven’t any control over that except in an accidental sense. The essential thing is just what has gone on in me, and if what happens coincides with what I ‘do’ in the sphere of intentions, that is just a grace of fate. This I think was Wittgenstein’s thought in the Tractatus when he wrote: ‘The world is independent of my will’ and…
‘Even if what we wish were always to happen, this would only be a grace of fate, for it is not any logical connexion between will and the world that would guarantee this, and as for the presumed physical connexion, we cannot will that.’ (6.373, 6.374).
That is to say: assuming it not to exist, willing it will be ineffectual. And I think that this reasoning applies to the effectiveness of any act of will. Hence Wittgenstein wrote in his notebooks at this time: ‘I am completely powerless’.
But this is nonsense too. For if nothing guarantees that the window gets opened when I ‘opened the window’, equally nothing guarantees that my toe moves when I ‘move my toe’; so the only thing that does happen is my intention;(…)

in Intention, 1957.

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