Facing the Future

Download or read book Facing the Future written by Nuel Belnap and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2001-08-02 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is an important new theory of human action, a theory that assumes actions are founded on choices made by agents who face an open future. It is a theory that makes indeterminism not only intelligible but illuminating. Tools from philosophy of language and philosophical logic help generate a full-scale account of agents "seeing to it that." The authors then proceed to clarify a variety of action-related topics such as determinism vs. indeterminism, imperatives, promises, strategies, joint agency, "could have done otherwise," deontic constructions, and assertions about a not yet settled future.