MOTOR INTENTIONS: CONNECTING INTENTIONS WITH ACTIONS.

I defend the idea that the connection between intentions and actions is provided by what I call motor intentions. These are intentions that represent what I term motor outcomes, namely outcomes characterized in terms of movement details, but which, at the same time, enjoy a relative degree of independence from fine movement details. Thus, the content of a motor intention crucially involves one of a limited set of bodily parts, which has to undergo a specific change—one, for instance, that brings it into a specific relation to a certain object (examples are the intention to grasp, or to tear). Consider that a motor representation (see Jeannerod 1994, 2006) represents an action outcome by depicting the self in action as that which determines the kinematic pattern of the movements, and is thus apt to be transformed into movements. A motor intention has either the same content as the corresponding motor representation, or refers to an action outcome by deferring to a motor representation representing that outcome (see Butterfill & Sinigaglia, 2012). I show that the distinctions between prior intentions and intentions in action proposed by Searle (1983) are inadequately motivated, thus differentiating my notion of motor intention from that of intention in action. Finally, I re-interpret the data of some experiments concerning mirror neurons for action in the light of a philosophical framework for intentions that takes into account motor intentions.