From: "Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus-AT-gis.net>
Subject: Re: BHA: Agency chez Bhaskar
Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 10:15:21 -0500


Hi Ruth--

>              At the same time, I don't
> think that there's a *prohibition* on the concept of collective agency
> -- it's just (I would say) that it is intentionality that is at the heart
of
> agency, and it is individuals, in PON anyway, whose intentionality
> is ontologically primary.

Right.  For RB, the linchpin of agency is intentionality, which is bound up
with his argument that reasons are causes.  I don't think there's any
problem treating organized groups (activist grouplets, theater companies,
multinational corporations, government bureaus) as agents, insofar as they
formulate plans to undertake some activity and then put the plan into
practice.  (This may be controversial: you may remember that Colin and I
hotly debated the issue.)  But so far as I know, Bhaskar only mentions
individuals.  So the key issue for me is to figure out what RB gains by
working in terms of "agents" instead of "people" or "individuals."  Are
these effectively synonyms or not?

The question might be made clearer by raising another alternative to the
concept of "agents": that of "subjects."  In this light, "agents" emphasizes
people's ability to act within the social world outside their minds, whereas
"subjects" are deeply interiorized and relatively passive constructs.  But
is this as far as it goes?

Clearly, however, if intentionality is central, then that rules out
unorganized collectivies as potential agents -- which Archer would oppose
doing.  And as you say, structures can't be agents in any case.

> Why does Archer say what she does, do you think?

I think she is concerned with two issues: (1) develop a stratified concept
of what people and and do, by recognizing that people belong to groups with
shared social positions and trajectories, and linking that to social
structures; and (2) accomodate the impact of unorganized collectivities on
social structures and dynamics (e.g. a society's aging population affects
the labor market).  I'm not convinced that treating agents as strictly
collective is the only way to meet these goals.

Cheers, T.

---
Tobin Nellhaus
nellhaus-AT-mail.com
"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce




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