180172 SE Habits (2019W)

Habitual actions have a history of practice and repetition that frees us from attending to what we are doing, from deliberating about what to do, and even from forming an intention before acting. Nevertheless, many habitual actions like getting dressed in the morning, or biking back home from work, are cases of intentional action. What accounts for the intentionality of habitual actions if they can be automatically initiated, performed, and controlled?

There are two key conceptualizations of habits.
The one conceptualization of habits comes from the Aristotelian tradition. For Aristotle, a habit is an acquired disposition to perform certain types of action. This disposition can also involve enhanced cognitive control of actions.
The notion of habit used in neuroscience is an inheritance from a particular theoretical origin, whose main source is William James. In this tradition, habits have been characterized as rigid, automatic, unconscious, and opposed to goal-directed actions.

These twos opposing theoretical starting points will be discussed before we will continue with the recent debate regarding habits.

Questions that we will focus on are: To what extent are habitual actions automatic? Can habitual actions be performed without attention? If habitual actions are non-deliberative, are they responsive to reasons? If so, how? How can habitual actions be controlled by the agent, if not via deliberation or explicit intention formation? If habits are intelligent, what accounts for their intelligence? What accounts for our responsibility over our habitual actions, if they are not deliberative or intended?

The seminar is taught in English, and will feature small group discussions. In preparation of each seminar, students will read the assigned core text and provide questions to preparatory reading on Moodle.