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.
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TL;DR: For at least two centuries most social thought has taken the earth to be the stable platform upon which dynamic social processes play out as discussed by the authors, and most social thinkers take the earth as a stable platform for dynamic social process play out.
Abstract: For at least two centuries most social thought has taken the earth to be the stable platform upon which dynamic social processes play out. Both climate change and the Anthropocene thesis – with their enfolding of dramatic geologic change into the space-time of social life – are now provoking social thinkers into closer engagement with earth science. After revisiting the decisive influence of the late 18th-century notion of geological formations on the idea of social formations, this introductory article turns to more recent and more explicit attempts to open up the categories of social thought to a deeper understanding of earth processes. This includes attempts to consider how social and political agency is both constrained and made possible by the forces of the earth itself. It also involves efforts to think beyond existing dependencies of social worlds upon particular geological strata and to imagine alternative ‘geosocial’ futures.
134 citations
TL;DR: This paper explored the ways in which teacher professionalism is constructed by government and how this transcends into a discourse of derision, which then becomes a subtle, yet powerful, means of controlling this occupational group.
Abstract: In this discussion paper, I seek to understand the complex interaction between notions of ‘professionalism’ and gendered identity constructions against the backdrop of increased state regulation and demands for performativity in the early years. I seek to explore the ways in which ‘teacher professionalism’ is constructed by government and how this transcends into a ‘discourse of derision’, which then becomes a subtle, yet powerful, means of controlling this occupational group. I conclude by presenting an alternative feminist conceptual framework for assessing the gendered nature of identity formation, and as an opportunity to consider the role agency can play when seeking to resist/renegotiate the rapid and powerful policy reform agenda in the early years.
134 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that nutrition intake is a determinant of individual welfare, that at low levels of intake it is a critical determinant, and that in the absence of such a scheme a sizeable fraction of the population would be vulnerable to food deprivation.
Abstract: Two aspects of persons have alternatingly dominated the thinking of social philosophers over the centuries, each true in itself, but each quite incomplete without the other. One sees us capable of deliberation, having the potential capacity to do things. It details agency, choice, independence and selfdetermination, and thereby that aspect of our selves which fashions projects and pursues goals. The other views us as seats of utility or satisfaction; as loci of possible states of mind, attained by the extent to which desires are fulfilled, by the activities that are undertaken and the relationships enjoyed. If one vision sees us doing things, the other sees us residing in states of being. Where the former leads one to the language of freedom and rights, the latter directs one to a concern with welfare and happiness. These are related aspects of course, in fact so closely related that they have often been conflated into one without having caused any obvious damage. Consider for example that people often appeal to a category of socio-economic rights (that is, rights to certain scarce resources) when advocating policies which have an impact on the extent of absolute poverty in a society. Now, it is possible to use instead some notion of aggregate welfare and reach similar conclusions. We may, for instance, be considering the desirability of a nutrition-guarantee scheme. We could advocate it by invoking persons' wellbeing interests, such as certain types of positive rights. (See Section VI.) We could also commend it on grounds of aggregate utility. We could do this by noting first that nutrition intake is a determinant of individual welfare, that at low levels of intake it is a critical determinant, and that in the absence of such a scheme a sizeable fraction of the population would be vulnerable to food deprivation. We could thus argue that the level of aggregate welfare which
134 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the role public intellectuals and cultural workers might play in challenging the pervasive institutional and ideological influence of neoliberalism as it continues to attack all public spaces and social services not governed by the logic of the market.
Abstract: This article addresses the role public intellectuals and cultural workers might play in challenging the pervasive institutional and ideological influ ence of neoliberalism as it continues to attack all public spaces and social services not governed by the logic of the market. The author takes up this challenge by articulating a relationship between the political and peda gogical that is central to any notion of cultural politics. In doing so, he attempts to foreground how the diverse forms of critical pedagogy and cul tural studies can engage in progressive cultural politics through the interre lated registers of insurgent citizenship, a performative critical pedagogy, and a contextualized notion of political agency. The interconnected con cepts of discourse, context, power, and theory are used to critique notions of textuality that refuse to link the symbolic to material relations of power and to engage the limits of dystopian performative work that fails in spite of its appeal to the transgressive to ad...
133 citations
Book•
01 Jan 2006
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a case study in neuroethics: the nature of moral judgment, moral and legal responsibility and the new neuroscience for protecting human subjects in brain research.
Abstract: PART I - NEUROSCIENCE, ETHICS, AGENCY AND THE SELF 1 Moral decision-making and the brain 2 A case study in neuroethics: the nature of moral judgment 3 Moral and legal responsibility and the new neuroscience 4 Brains, lies and psychological explanations 5 Being in the world: neuroscience and the ethical agent 6 Creativity, gratitude and the enhancement debate: 7 Ethical dilemmas in neurodegenerative disease: respecting patients at the twlight of agency PART II - NEUROETHICS IN PRACTICE 8 From genome to brainome: charting the lessons learned 9 Protecting human subjects in brain research: a pragmatic perspective 10 Facts, fictions and the future of neuroethics 11 A picture is worth 1000 words, but which 1000? 12 When genes and brains unite: ethical implications of genomic neuroimaging 13 Engineering the brain 14 Transcranial magnetic stimulation and the human brain: an ethical evaluation 15 Functional neurosurgical intervention: neuroethics in the operating room 16 Clinicians, patients and the brain PART III - JUSTICE, SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS AND NEUROETHICS 17 The social effects of advances in neuroscience: legal problems, legal perspectives 19 Poverty, privilege and brain development: empirical findings and ethical implications 20 Religious responses to neuroscientific questions 21 The mind in the movies: a neuroethical analysis of the portrayal of the mind in popular media
133 citations