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Intention and
Intentionality
Essays in Honour of
G. E. M . Anscombe
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JENNY 'rfHCIJMAN
I'd like to try to explore what a claim of this kind can add up to.
In what sense can action be seen as expression? I want to tackle
this problem in two stages. In the fint, I discuss the dift'erent
senses that 'expression' could have. In the second, I look at the
question whether action can be seen as expression in one of
these senses.
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Part I
Action As Expression
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So what to make of the idea that our action is an expression of
desire ('tryinfto get' an expression of 'wanting')?
There are some things we could think of which arc unproblematicaJJy ex_pressions of desire : I want some tasty food
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which I sec over there: I mime, lick my chops, make by eyes like
saucers, rub my stomach, say'ummmm'. Or else, I can say, rd
love a piece of that delicious layer-cake'.
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Another thing I might do is just go up to the plate, cut a. pieOC
of layer-cake, and cat it with relish. Is this also an expresston of
the desire?
We resist assimilating the action to the mime and verbal
statement. This is because these two are clearly expressions in
the strong sense. They manifest my desire, and this in a sense
which is irreducible either to their just offering a physiognomic
reading of the desire, or to their figuring in a sucoessful attempt
on my part to make my desire evident to you.
They arc irreducible in the first way, because mime and
statement arise as part of our activity of communicating, of
being open with each other. Gestures and words are shaped by
their role in communicating. And so there is a question of what
they say which is not reducible to what can be read in the?~ The
case of mime shows the contrast perhaps most strikingly;
because it builds on certain natural reactions which do allow
mere physiognomic readings ofdesire (or perhaps even in some
cases inferential readings). Wben I am very hungry and I see
good' food, my eyes get bigger, I salivate (making 1D': lick my
lips), my stomach rumbles, etc. These are natmal react:lons; the
step from them to the exaggerated carica~ is ttJ&: step to
communication; it has a place in the way of life of beings who
have to be in a sense open with each other. It manifests tbe
disposition to communicate.
And mime and statement are irreducible in the second way.
because although closely bound up with the disposition to
communicate their manifesting my desire is not just a mat~r
of my intenti~ns in deploying them. I may cen &i'Ye myself
away involuntarily, if I blurt out what I want or let oae ofthese
gestures of desire escape me. On the other band. I could Ft you
to be aware of my desire by causing you to be awa~ of my
galvanic skin responses; but these would oot for all that be
expressions of desire.
So mime and statement are expressions iD tbe strooa seDIO.
In the case of the mime, we may c..-en be temJ*d to adopt tbt
tcnn 'natural expression'. Bxc::cpt that this milbt be mileadiD&.
sinc::c tbcre is always an dement of the. conwntional &lid
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Action As Expreuion
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Ue
en usc m
lnt!ntlon Clntllmt!ntlonallty
!U.HUC
Action AJ ExpresJion
wht~h C!lll be rcucl m nur bchnviour und which ~tUHOM lt, und
~ha~h nc~rlhcloHtt iN not cxprcsMcd In tho hahn vlour. Thht ht so
"' CU"CS uf whut huVc been C4allad dovinnt cuurtnl chulnt~' : for
oxu~nl'l~, the ":'sc.whore l desire wry m~ach to l'trnurth your Mlng
VU8C bccnu~tC at Wt!l lllY yma out for hcmg Mo moun to me. This
powcr.l\1, tlc:strucuvc desire of mine makes me su norvou8 tlult
tny gnp IS loosened On tho VR!&O nnd it Mmnshes Oil the noor.
T his kind of case has been much disclUisod in the lltcrnture.
An.d o~ course. there is no ngreemcmt on whut to mnke of it. My
claam as that at shows thut the relation of nction und desire
~mnot be anulyzed with some genenl category of cause which
!s ulso upplicable to inanimate beings. Rather we can see that
Just what is missing in the deviant case is that relation between
desire and action that I want to call'expression'. Someone can
ph~iognomicaJly .read my hostility to you in the agitation
which eventuates 10 my dropping the vase; but this doesn't
express my desire in the stronger sense, even though by fluke
the resulting event (the smashing of the vase) turns out to have
the same description as the one I wanted to bring about We
can see from the deviant case that this stronger, more intimate
relation of expression is essential to what we consider normal
action. What is this relation? It is that desire and action arc in a
certain sense inseparable.
To see this we have to lookatwhatonemightcall the normal
or basic situation. one in which I act unreluctantly and
unconst.minedly. This situation am be called basic', because
here my action ~nd desire are in the relation from which my
cL'lssi6cntion of desires is drown. My desires auc lllways
'-'h~ructerittd by releren'-"' to th~ sitution, where I am doina
whut I wunt. And tl1i~ is the only way that n desire am be
chaructcri~.ed. lf I didn't have this oormul sitwltion us one of
my pt>ssibilities, und aa.L lenst sometimes us un actuality, l
couldn't have the lun&U!l&e of desire thut I huve.
To suy that desire and action are inseparable in tlus situation
is not to say t~t they cun't be cause and effecl On the contrary,
they are. Bu-&t does mean that they cannot be identified as
sepumble components in this situation. My desiring X is not
something separable from my unconstrained, unreluctant
action encompassing X. And my action encompassing X
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Action As Expre3sion
any visible symptoms at all. But in the case ofdesire, there must
be some manifest affecL It isn't a desire otherwise.
Now if we take this point that desire is an intentional state,
and look back at what I have called the basic situation, we can
see how desire and action arc inseparable. For in the case where
I act unconstrainedly and unreluctantly, my awareness of my
desire must always include, and can just consist in, tnY
awareness that I am so acting. But since my awareness of my
desire is not some separable symptom, but is essential to my
desire, is part of what it is to have this desire, then so is my
awareness of my unconstrained action. Awareness of what I
want is inseparable here from awareness of what I am doing.
Desire and action are not separable components in the basic
situation.
They begin to come apart when I am constrained from
action. Then the awareness of desire can take the form merely
of a formulation to myself, or to you, of what I want; or a sense
of unease, perhaps. But this case is parasitic on the normal case,
in that our desires are characterized by reference to the normal
case.
So there must be a context in which my desire can't be
separated from my action. But if this is so, then the second
claim must also be true, that my action encompassing my end
can't be understood as distinct from my behaviour in other
contexts just in that it has some special separably identifiable
antecedent. The awareness which enters into, which can be
identical with, my awareness of desire. must be of a kind of
action qualitatively ditferent from other contexts. It is happy
action.
It is because there is and must be such a context where desire
and action aren't separable, this context being central to the
development of our language of desire and action, that seeing
action as the natural expression of desire is saying something
stronger than just that action offers a physiognomic reading of
our motivations. It does offer physiognomic reading of many
desires, or rather, my total behaviour, demeanour, etc., does;
as it also ofers reading of my other states: fatigue, distress,
nervousness, etc. But in the normal situation, there is a desire
which enjoys a special status, which is the one inseparable from
this happy action. To say that th.ia is naturaUy exprened in the
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as a
distin . yst~ ogt~l reductive account of what underlies the
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ction., but if we want to talk about what the distinction
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