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Selfless Desires
Author(s) -
NOLAN Daniel
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
philosophy and phenomenological research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.7
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1933-1592
pISSN - 0031-8205
DOI - 10.1111/j.1933-1592.2006.tb00553.x
Subject(s) - epistemology , action (physics) , rank (graph theory) , philosophy , analytic philosophy , content (measure theory) , sociology , contemporary philosophy , mathematics , mathematical analysis , physics , combinatorics , quantum mechanics
David Lewis's unified theory of the contents of de se and de dicto attitudes faces a problem. Whether or not it is adequate for representing beliefs, it misrepresents the content of many of our desires, which rank possible outcomes in which the agent with the desire does not exist. These desires are shown to play a role in the rational explanation of action, and recognising them is important in our understanding of ourselves.