Philosophy in Action

Action takes time, unfolds in time. Intentions persist through time, our deliberations are sensitive to time, our commitments maintained through time. So much seems mere truism. The promise of this collection -- the result of the Time and Agency Conference held at George Washington University in 2011 -- is to reveal substantial truths behind these apparent truisms -- "that time structures agency from within", "that time is an ineliminable constituent of agency" (1). Put simply, to understand action we must understand the role of time in action, intention, deliberation, and commitment. But don't be misled. The thesis is not about the metaphysics of time at all, as though the truth about agency turns on debates about the nature of time. More correctly, the idea is that any correct characterization of agency must make mention of time. Yet as these diverse essays on action show, there are various ways -- some with very little in common -- to construe the role of time in action, what the editors like to call "the temporality of action." Though I did not come away convinced that there was some deep philosophical point about time and action that unifies them all, there are some very good essays here that make serious contributions to philosophy of action. None of these is for the novice or the faint of heart, unnerved by technicality and jargon. But there are indeed several that anyone interested in action should read.