Conclusion

Abstract

This chapter concludes. Its aim is primarily summary and paraphrase, and placing the ideas developed in this book side by side. Cormac McCarthy is gratuitously quoted. And then the chapter brings reflection back to the metaphorical distinction between activity and passivity with which the book began. On the picture the book develops, agents become active by degree, in various ways. With the exercise of control, the passive becomes active, and plans give rise to intentional action. With the development of skill, capacities for planning and for exercising control and for executing intentional action begin to cover broad differences of circumstance. With the acquisition of knowledge, agents are able to impose their will on parts of the world that their practice may not have adequately prepared them for. In knowledgeable action, agents exert change in the world in part by figuring out the world they change.