Understanding Action

"Schick's aim is to modify the standard picture of rational choice to make sense of a number of areas where it seems inadequate. The result is an interesting and thought-provoking book, at once rigorously argued, easily read, and deeply thought out." Adam Morton, Economic Journal "Schick has long been a nasterly writer on reasons for action and this essay is crafted with his usual economy and cunning. Its many invitations to further reflection deserve to be taken up. Martin Hollis, Journal of Philosophy "Frederic Schick's Understanding Action is an important book. It significantly enriches one's understanding of intentional action, deliberation, and practical reasoning by incorporating features that have been excluded both from the desire-belief model as it is typically presented and from the usual decision-theoretic...model that has dominated more formal treatments. Its thesis is both carefully presented and richly illustrated, and its implications traced out in rigorous terms. ...[It] provides a bridge between more standard accounts of decision theory and some recent and very important revisionist work (in particular, Kahneman and Tversky's theory of framing effects). ...This book is a must for all who are interested in the logic of deliberation and choice." Edward F. McClennen and Peter Boltuc, Economics and Philosophy