The problem with determining agency is that it looks as if we are determining a quality in an actor in the moment. In fact, that is not what is happening. When Wittgenstein examines psychological states he notes that some of them have what he refers to as “Echte Dauer” – real duration – and some do not. Hence, it works to ask when pain starts and stops, or to speak of an instant of extreme pain, but if we were to do the same when it comes to sorrow the result would be almost comical. “Do you feel sorrow now?…
Category: Philosophy
Agency and autonomy I: Agency and an attitude to a soul
The notion of agency is essential to understanding our society. If we cannot say who did something, or what it means to be the one actual acting in a specific case, then all of the language games of legal liability, contractual freedom and intellectual property – to name but a few subjects – falter and fail. Agency lies at the core of our legal philosophies, it is a concept so deeply entrenched that it is easy to miss. What, then, does it mean to be an agent, to act, to have agency? There is no simple answer here, but there…