TITLE:
Social Action Explanation and Intentions in Sociology and Social Sciences
AUTHORS:
Albertina Oliverio
KEYWORDS:
Intentions, Social Action Explanation, Biological Explanation, Cognitive Bi-ases, Conspiracy Theory
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Applied Sociology,
Vol.13 No.8,
August
28,
2023
ABSTRACT: The relationship between actions and intentions has
always been at the centre of an articulated debate within philosophy and social
sciences. On the one hand, there is a growing trend to naturalize the concept
of intention: this is based on wide empirical evidence, above all in the
neuroscientific field, and suggests that
human action mainly depends on cerebral and biological mechanisms. On
the other hand, especially in the sociological field, there is a strong
tradition linking intentions to social action explanation, bringing them back
to reasoning and rationality in the broadest sense. Also, within the
psychological field there is an interesting growing literature focusing on the
importance of understanding the mental mechanisms underlying intentional action
in describing and anticipating various cognitive errors till conspiracy
theories. This paper aims to browse some of the contributions within this
topic.