Topic
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.
Papers published on a yearly basis
Papers
More filters
09 Aug 2007
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an overview of the history of the early modern debate on the notion of substance in philosophy and its application to human behavior, including the concept of Agent Causation as a prototype.
Abstract: Preface. Part I: The Project. 1. Human Nature. 2. Philosophical Anthropology. 3. Grammatical Investigation. 4. Philosophical Investigation. 5. Philosophy and 'Mere Words'. 6. A Challenge to the Autonomy of the Philosophical Enterprise: Quine. 7. The Platonic and the Aristotelian Traditions in Philosophical Anthropology. Part II: Substance. 1. Substances: Things. 2. Substances: Stuffs. 3. Substance-referring Expressions. 4. Conceptual Connections between Things and Stuffs. 5. Substances and their Substantial parts. 6. Substances Conceived as Natural Kinds. 7. Substances Conceived as a Common Logico-linguistic Category. 8. A Historical Digression: Misconceptions of the Category of Substance. Part III: Causation. 1. Causation: Humean, Neo-Humean and Anti-Humean. 2. On Causal Necessity. 3. Event Causation is not a Prototype. 4. The Inadequacy of Hume's Analysis: Observability, Spatio-temporal Relations, and Regularity. 5. The Flaw in the Early Modern Debate. 6. Agent Causation as Prototype. 7. Agent Causation is Only a Prototype. 8. Event Causation and Other Centres of Variation. 9. Overview. Part IV: Powers. 1. Possibility. 2. Powers of the Inanimate. 3. Active and Passive Powers of the Inanimate. 4. Power and its Actualization. 5. Power and its Vehicle. 6. First- and Second-order Powers Loss of Power. 7. Human Powers: Basic Distinctions. 8. Human Powers: Further Distinctions. 9. Dispositions. Part V: Agency. 1. Inanimate Agents. 2. Inanimate Needs. 3. Animate Agents: Needs and Wants. 4. Volitional Agency: Preliminaries. 5. Doings, Acts and Actions. 6. Human Agency and Action. 7. A Historical Overview. 8. Human Action as Agential Causation of Movement. Part VI: Teleology and Teleological Explanation. 1. Teleology and Purpose. 2. What Things have a Purpose?. 3. Purpose and Axiology. 4. The Beneficial. 5. A Historical Digression: Teleology and Causality. Part VII: Reasons and Explanation of Human Action. 1. Rationality and Reasonableness. 2. Reason, Reasoning and Reasons. 3. Explaining Human Behaviour. 4. Explanation in Terms of Agential Reasons. 5. Causal Mythologies. Part VIII: The Mind. 1. Homo loquens. 2. The Cartesian Mind. 3. The Nature of the Mind. Part IX: The Self and the Body. 1. The Emergence of the Philosophers' Self. 2. The Illusions of the Philosophers' Self. 3. The Body. 4. The Relationship between Human Beings and their Bodies. Part X: The Person. 1. The Emergence of the Concept. 2. An Unholy Trinity: Descartes, Locke and Hume. 3. Changing Bodies and Switching Brains: Puzzle Cases and Red Herrings. 4. The Concept of a Person. Index
195 citations
Book•
25 Apr 2006
TL;DR: Social identity research has transformed psychology and the social sciences and has prompted a rethinking of the relationship between personal identity and social identity - the issue of individuality in the group.
Abstract: Social identity research has transformed psychology and the social sciences. Developed around intergroup relations, perspectives on social identity have now been applied fruitfully to a diverse array of topics and domains, including health, organizations and management, culture, politics and group dynamics. In many of these new areas, the focus has been on groups, but also very much on the autonomous individual. This has been an exciting development, and has prompted a rethinking of the relationship between personal identity and social identity - the issue of individuality in the group. This book brings together an international selection of prominent researchers at the forefront of this development. They reflect on the issue of individuality in the group and on how thinking about social identity has changed. Together, these chapters chart a key development in the field: how social identity perspectives inform understanding of cohesion, unity and collective action, but also how they help us understand individuality, agency, autonomy, disagreement, and diversity within groups. This text is valuable to advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students studying social psychology where intergroup relations and group processes are a central component. Given its wider reach, however, it will also be of interest to those in cognate disciplines where social identity perspectives have application potential.
192 citations
TL;DR: The Secular Revolution as mentioned in this paper argues that the declining authority of religion was not the by-product of modernization, but rather the intentional achievement of cultural and intellectual elites, including scientists, academics, and literary intellectuals, seeking to gain control of social institutions and increase their own cultural authority.
Abstract: Sociologists, historians, and other social observers have long considered the secularization of American public life over the past hundred and thirty years to be an inevitable and natural outcome of modernization. This groundbreaking work rejects this view and fundamentally rethinks the historical and theoretical causes of the secularization of American public life between 1870 and 1930. Christian Smith and his team of contributors boldly argue that the declining authority of religion was not the by-product of modernization, but rather the intentional achievement of cultural and intellectual elites, including scientists, academics, and literary intellectuals, seeking to gain control of social institutions and increase their own cultural authority. Writing with vigor and a broad intellectual grasp, the contributors examine power struggles and ideological shifts in various social sectors where the public authority of religion has diminished, in particular education, science, law, and journalism. Together the essays depict a cultural and institutional revolution that is best understood in terms of individual agency, conflicts of interest, resource mobilization, and struggles for authority. Engaging both sociological and historical literature, The Secular Revolution offers a new theoretical framework and original empirical research that will inform our understanding of American society from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. The ramifications of its provocative and cogent thesis will be felt throughout sociology, religious studies, and our general thinking about society for years to come.
192 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the emergence of the choice biography, as it is linked to the work of Ulrich Beck, in youth research and argue that the relationship and balance between structure and agency is of little interest to Beck and aim to discourage forcing his work into this frame.
Abstract: This paper explores the emergence of the concept of choice biography, as it is linked to the work of Ulrich Beck, in youth research. The concept has been called a current pervasive theoretical orthodoxy. However, this article argues that the concept is most often taken up to critique, and Beck used mostly as a foil, through arguing that he overemphasizes agency and neglects structural constraints, in establishing or occupying a middle-ground theoretical position between structure and agency. I propose that the relationship and balance between structure and agency is of little interest to Beck and aim to discourage forcing his work into this frame. Instead of focusing on a shift towards agency, and proposing the concept of choice biographies to understand the shift, Beck is making the more complicated claim that at the very moment, and through the same processes, that some of the constraints placed on people are breaking down, the predictability and security that would allow these new options to function a...
191 citations
TL;DR: A notable feature of recent sociological writing is the growing frequency with which actions are interpreted as forming part of a strategy, and sociologists' usage of the concept of ''strategy'' is now sufficiently common to warrant its investigation, especially since important and difficult issues are raised when it is adopted as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: One notable feature of recent sociological writing is the growing frequency with which actions are interpreted as forming part of a strategy. All sorts of social actors, from lowly individuals, through households, family businesses, social movements and classes, to mighty multi-national corporations and nation-states, have been represented as employing strategies, and sociologists' usage of the concept of `strategy' is now sufficiently common to warrant its investigation, especially since important and difficult issues are raised when it is adopted. Academic fashion may play a part in explaining the current prominence within the sociological vocabulary of the concept of `strategy', but greater significance should be attached to underlying trends in sociological theorising, even if these are not appreciated in every case where `strategy' is found being employed. Analysis of actions and their outcomes in terms of strategies carries with it the promise of avoiding some of the pitfalls of the classic agency/s...
191 citations