Abstract
In this article we strive to provide a detailed and principled analysis of the role of beliefs in goal processing—that is, the cognitive transition that leads from a mere desire to a proper intention. The resulting model of belief-based goal processing has also relevant consequences for the analysis of intentions, and constitutes the necessary core of a constructive theory of intentions, i.e. a framework that not only analyzes what an intention is, but also explains how it becomes what it is. We discuss similarities and differences between our approach and other standard accounts of intention, in particular Bratman’s planning theory. The aim here is to question and refine the conceptual foundations of many theories of intentional action: as a consequence, although our analysis is not formal in itself, it is ultimately meant to have deep consequences for formal models of intentional agency.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Anscombe G.E.M. (1957). Intention. Ithaca, Cornell University Press
Arkes H., Blumer C. (1985). The psychology of sunk cost. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Process 35, 124–140
Audi R. (1973). Intending. Journal of Philosophy 70, 387–403
Bell J. (1995). Changing attitudes. In: Wooldridge M.J., Jennings N.R. (eds), Intelligent agents: ECAI-94 workshop on agent theories, architectures, and languages. Berlin, Springer-Verlag, pp. 40–55
Bratman M. (1987). Intention, plans, and practical reason. Cambridge, Harvard University Press
Bratman M. (1999). Faces of intention. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
Bratman M., Israel D., Pollack M. (1988). Plans and resource-bounded practical reasoning. Computational Intelligence 4, 349–355
Castañeda H.-N.(1975). Thinking and doing. Dordrecht, Reidel
Castelfranchi C. (1996). Reasons: Belief support and goal dynamics. Mathware & Soft Computing 3, 233–247
Castelfranchi C. (1997). Representation and integration of multiple knowledge sources: Issues and questions. In: Cantoni V., Di Gesù V., Setti A., Tegolo D. (eds), Human & machine perception: Information fusion. New York, Plenum Press, pp. 235–254
Castelfranchi C. (1998a). To believe and to feel: The case of needs. In: Cañamero L. (eds), Proceedings of the AAAI fall symposium “Emotional and Intelligent: The Tangled Knot of Cognition”. New York, AAAI Press, pp. 55–60
Castelfranchi C. (1998b). Modelling social action for AI agents. Artificial Intelligence 103, 157–182
Cawsey A., Galliers J., Logan B., Reece S., Sparck Jones K. (1993). Revising beliefs and intentions: A unified framework for agent interaction. In: Sloman A., Hogg D., Humphreys G., Ramsay A. (eds), Proceedings of AISB ’93. Amsterdam, IOS Press, pp. 130–139
Cohen P.R., Levesque H.J. (1990). Intention is choice with commitment. Artificial Intelligence 42, 213–261
Davidson D. (1980). Essays on actions and events. New York, Oxford University Press
Davis W. (1984). A causal theory of intending. American Philosophical Quarterly 21, 43–54
Dignum F., Conte R. (1997). Intentional agents and goal formation. In: Singh M.P., Rao A., Wooldridge M. (eds), Proceedings of ATAL97. Berlin, Springer, pp. 231–244
Georgeff M., & Lansky A.L. (1987). Reactive reasoning and planning. In Proceedings of the 6th national conference on artificial intelligence (AAAI-87) (pp. 677–682). Seattle.
Goldman A. (1970). A theory of human action. Englewood Cliffs, Prentice-Hall
Miller G., Galanter E., Pribram K.H. (1960). Plans and the structure of behaviour. New York, Holt, Rinehart & Winston
Paglieri F. (2004). Data-oriented belief revision: Towards a unified theory of epistemic processing. In: Onaindia E., Staab S. (eds), STAIRS 2004: Proceedings of the 2nd Starting AI researchers’ symposium. Amsterdam, IOS Press, pp. 179–190
Paglieri F. (2006). Belief dynamics: From formal models to cognitive architectures, and back again. PhD dissertation, University of Siena.
Paglieri F., Castelfranchi C. (2007). The Toulmin test: Framing argumentation within belief revision theories. In: Hitchcock D., Verheij B. (eds), Arguing on the Toulmin model. Berlin, Springer, pp. 359–377
Poggi I. (2005). The goals of persuasion. Pragmatics and Cognition 13, 297–336
Pollack M. (1991). Overloading intentions for efficient practical reasoning. Noûs 25, 513–536
Ramsey F. (1931). Truth and probability. Reprinted in H. E. Kyburg, & H. E. Smokler (Eds.). (1964). Studies in subjective probability (pp. 61–92). New York: Wiley.
Rao A.S., Georgeff M. (1991). Modeling rational agents within a BDI-architecture. In: Allen J., Fikes R., Sandewall E. (eds), Principles of knowledge representation and reasoning: Proceedings of the second international conference (KR91). San Mateom, CA, Morgan Kaufmann, pp. 463–484
Rosenblueth A., Wiener N., Bigelow J. (1968). Behaviour, purpose, and teleology. In: Buckley W. (eds), Modern systems research for the behavioural scientist. Chicago, Aldine, pp. 368–372
Schut M., Wooldridge M., Parsons S. (2004). The theory and practice of intention reconsideration. Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence 16, 261–293
Sellars W. (1967). Form and content in ethical theory. The Lindsay Lecture for 1967: Department of Philosophy, University of Kansas (on-line version: http://www.ditext.com/sellars/fcet.html – last consulted on 14/09/2006).
Shoham Y. (1993). Agent-oriented programming. Artificial Intelligence 60, 51–92
Singh M.P., Asher N.M. (1993). A logic of intentions and beliefs. Journal of Philosophical Logic 22, 513–544
Sycara K. (1991). Pursuing persuasive argumentation. In Symposium on argumentation and belief. AAAI Spring Symposium Series, Stanford University.
van der Hoek W., Jamroga W., & Wooldridge M. (2007). Towards a theory of intention revision. Synthese (this issue).
van der Hoek W., Wooldridge M.J. (2003). Towards a logic of rational agency. Logic Journal of the IGPL 11, 133–157
Walton D.N. (1998). The new dialectic: Conversational contexts of argument. Toronto, University of Toronto Press
Weiner B. (1974). Achievement motivation and attribution theory. Morristown, General Learning Press
Wooldridge M.J. (2000). Reasoning about rational agents. Cambridge, MIT Press
Wooldridge M., Parsons S. (1998). Intention reconsideration reconsidered. In: Müller J.P., Rao A.S., Singh M.S. (eds), Intelligent agents V: Agent theories, architectures, and languages. Berlin, Springer-Verlag, pp. 63–79
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Castelfranchi, C., Paglieri, F. The role of beliefs in goal dynamics: prolegomena to a constructive theory of intentions. Synthese 155, 237–263 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-006-9156-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-006-9156-3