Abstract

Hume has distinguished the human knowledge into two: one with the "action" on the practice of knowledge, this type of experience, knowledge about human aesthetic tastes, emotional well deterioration, the value measure, moral feelings, is a human pursuit of fortune Fook and virtue guiding Principles. The other is "rational," the theoretical knowledge, this type of knowledge about human understanding ability to determine, focus on the positive or negative things we have contacted, action taken or behavior. Although well aware of Hume "action" in practice the value of life and meaning, describe that to establish in the absence of "self identity", no "free will" on the law of cause and effect; although he denied the necessity of the law. Current wind As a result, contemporary "action theory" is always caught in action is "causal" or "no cause and effect" argument. Among them, Dai Weisheng "intention action theory" the most representative. Contemporary Anglo-American philosophy, action theory although certain "action" is one based on reason, intent and purpose to, but because of certain "action" by the "causal" decision, always caught in the "naturalistic machinery regardless" and the "purpose regardless" of the compatibility of controversy. Qualification process philosopher Whitehead of this sub-km諸Aristotle's "realization" of concepts, breaking the British experience, regardless of tradition, the development of a "current unit description" , or as to resolve disputes a clue. David Hume once distinguished two types of human knowledge, one is concerned with action, as influenced by taste and sentiment, pursuing one object and avoiding another according to the value which the objects seem to possess. The other is concerned with reason and theory, examining the nature of human understanding with no care of cultivating our manners and with the only interest to find principles helping us to evaluate any particular object, action, or behavior. Hume certainly understood the significance of the concept of action in moral practice; however, he founded the concept on a basis of naturalism and causal mechanism which deprives it of its teleological implications. In addition, Hume also denied the notions of personality identity and of free will which ensure action its spontaneity and freedom. Following this Humean tradition, contemporary analytic philosophers occupied themselves with the issues of the causal or non-causal / teleological explanations of action, the logic of action, the logical grammar of action sentences, etc., but failed to understand the truth meaning of action itself. The present paper is an attempt to find a clue to the solution of the controversy over mechanism and teleology in action theory and to the understanding of the nature of action by introducing Alfred North Whitehead's theory of actual entities, which suggests us to go beyond the opposition of mechanism to teleology and gives us a more extensive picture of the concept of action.