No one knows what to do to fix the economy.

At their meeting this month, Federal Reserve policy makers were in strong disagreement, with some advocating aggressive options to stimulate the economy and others pressing to do nothing, according to minutes released on Tuesday.

At the time of the Aug. 9 meeting, the Fed disclosed three dissenting votes — unusual given that most decisions are reached by consensus — but it was not known until Tuesday that there was such a broad array of disagreement and such vigorous debate about the options.

In the end, the Federal Open Market Committee took a middle ground, agreeing to keep interest rates near zero through mid-2013.

In addition to debate about the Fed’s approach to aiding the recovery, the meeting was dominated by sobering assessments of the economy’s disappointing performance this summer and downgrades for growth in the next few months. Since the meeting, the government reported that the economy expanded only 0.7 percent in the first six months of the year.