Abstract

This chapter distinguishes between two general approaches to agency in modern philosophy. The first, ‘empiricism’, regards will and action as related _causally_: the details vary widely, but proponents of empiricism include Descartes, Hume, and most contemporary philosophers of agency. The second approach, ‘expressivism’, regards will and action as related _constitutively_: again there are differences of detail, but proponents of expressivism include Hegel, Schopenhauer, and, on certain readings of him, Wittgenstein. This chapter argues that the empiricist approach has difficulty in accommodating some of the (highly plausible) intuitions that underpin the expressivist approach; and it defends and develops those intuitions in order to suggest that the emphases characteristic of expressivism still have a claim on our attention, current orthodoxies notwithstanding.