Skilled sportsmen or musicians—more generally, skilled agents—often fill us with awe with the way they perform their actions. One question we may ask ourselves is whether they intended to perform some awe-inspiring aspects of their actions. This question becomes all the more pressing as it often turns out that these agents were not conscious of some of those aspects at the time of performance. As I shall argue, there are reasons for suspecting lack of conscious access to an aspect of one’s action to be incompatible with intending to perform that aspect of one’s action. Subsequently, though, I will also argue that, in some cases, the incompatibility is only prima facie, and can be dispelled by drawing the following distinction: that between aspects of one’s action that are merely temporarily not consciously accessed, versus aspects of one’s action that are permanently inaccessible to consciousness. I will thus remove an obstacle towards saying that skilled agents intended to perform certain aspects of their actions, despite lack of conscious access to those aspects at the time of performance.

熟练的运动员或音乐家-更笼统地说，是熟练的经纪人-通常会对他们执行动作的方式感到敬畏。我们可能会问自己一个问题，就是他们是否打算执行某些令人敬畏的行为。这个问题变得更加紧迫，因为经常会发现这些特工在演出时并不意识到其中的某些方面。就像我将要争论的那样，有理由怀疑缺乏对某人行为某一方面的有意识的访问与意图执行某人行为的这一方面是不相容的。但是，随后，我也将争辩说，在某些情况下，不兼容只是表面上的，并且可以通过画出以下区别来消除：一个人的行为各方面之间的区别仅仅是与意识永久无法到达的行为方面相比，暂时不能有意识地访问。因此，我将消除一个障碍，即尽管熟练的代理人在表演时没有意识地进入这些方面，但他们打算执行其行动的某些方面。