Agency (philosophy)

About: Agency (philosophy) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 10461 publications have been published within this topic receiving 350831 citations. The topic is also known as: Thought & Human agency.

Modest sociality and the distinctiveness of intention

Abstract: Cases of modest sociality are cases of small scale shared intentional agency in the absence of asymmetric authority relations. I seek a conceptual framework that adequately supports our theorizing about such modest sociality. I want to understand what in the world constitutes such modest sociality. I seek an understanding of the kinds of normativity that are central to modest sociality. And throughout we need to keep track of the relations—conceptual, metaphysical, normative—between individual agency and modest sociality. In pursuit of these theoretical aims, I propose that a central phenomenon is shared intention. I argue that an adequate understanding of the distinctiveness of the intentions of individuals allows us to provide a construction of attitudes of the participants, and of relevant inter-relations and contexts that constitutes shared intention. I explain how shared intention, so understood, differs from a simple equilibrium within common knowledge. And I briefly contrast my views with aspects of views of John Searle and Margaret Gilbert.

Agency, social theory and social policy.

Abstract: Social policy writers appear to be increasingly concerned with theories of human agency and their implications for the discipline. This article considers a recent model of agency presented by Hogge...

Action, agency and responsibility

Abstract: In a series of experiments Marc Jeannerod revealed that we have very little awareness of the details and causes of our actions. We are, however, vividly aware of being in control of our actions and this gives us a sense of responsibility. These feelings arise, first, from intentional binding which creates a perception of agency, linking an intentional action to its outcome and, second, from the counterfactual reasoning that we could have chosen some other action. These feelings of responsibility play a critical role in creating social cohesion since they allow people to be held to account for deliberate antisocial behaviour. Jeannerod's studies also showed that we are unaware of how little we know about our actions and so are happy to make up stories about the nature and causes of our behaviour. These stories often do not correspond with the underlying cognitive and neural processes, but they can be changed through instructions and through discussion with others. Our experience of responsibility for action emerges during our upbringing through exposure to our culture. This creates consensus about the causes of behaviour, but not necessarily accuracy.

Democratic theory and comparative politics

Abstract: The present article is a revision of democratic theory from the perspective of its inadequacies to account for the new - and not so new -, democracies located outside the Northwestern quadrant of the world. It begins by examining various definitions of democracy, especially those that claiming to be Schumpeterian, are deemed to be minimalist, or processualist; and proposes a realistic and restricted, but not minimalist definition of a democratic regime. The connections of this topic with several others are then explored, including political, social, and welfare rights; the state, mainly in its legal dimension; and some features of the overall social context. The main grounding factor that results from these explorations is the conception of agency, as it is expressed in the legal system of existing democracies, although widely variable across cases.

Conceptualizing community resilience: Revisiting conceptual distinctions

Abstract: Community development and related approaches have become prominent in academic circles, resulting in the emergence and resurgence of related community-level notions. With the expansion of terms, conceptual confusions have surfaced. The notion of community resilience has gone through this process, as its development/understanding is still in progress. Community resilience has been misused/confused with other notions including community agency, community vulnerability, community adaptability, and community capacity. Our goal here is to provide conceptual clarification to the term community resilience by reviewing and contrasting it with the above-mentioned notions. We argue that while similitudes exist within these concepts, they are bounded by their literatures fed by different fields of study, resulting in different goals (i.e. problem solving, response to change, and risk mitigation) in varying contexts. Despite their differences, we offer explanations of how the concepts are interrelated, in add...