Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

De se attitudes are attitudes that are guaranteed to be about the subject.   De nunc attiitudes are attitudes that are guaranteed to be about the current time. De se and de nunc attitudes play an especially important role in causing intentional action. It's intellectually unsatisfying to accept their doing this as explanatory bedrock. We should try to explain it by reference to what we know independently about intentional action. I canvass the suggestion that the explanation has to do with a connection between doing something intentionally and one's success in doing that thing not owing too much to luck.