From: "Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus-AT-gis.net> Subject: Re: BHA: Agency chez Bhaskar Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 19:47:50 -0500 I have to disagree with Dick Moodey on the term "agency." It's true that one meaning of "agent" is someone who acts on behalf of another, but this is a derivative sense: its founding definition is simply someone or something that acts (indeed, autonomously). It's not at all pomo to adopt this definition, and for that matter, it's a rare poststructuralist who speaks of agents at all: as I noted in a previous post, usually they refer only to Subjects and are incapable of addressing agency. Given this definition of "agent," the term for the capacity to act -- agency -- is a perfectly good theoretical term. Re marxist and non-marxist (D)CR, I concur that "split" overstates the case. There are different ideas of how to apply CR, and there should be. Even within the camp that sides with both DCR and marxism, there are differences. As Mervyn says, CR is a (relatively) big tent. In any case I think the pre- and post-FEW distinction is far sharper than the CR/DCR one. Mervyn -- In *Realist Social Theory* Archer is adamant that *all* agents are collective (see pp. 257+). Her distinction between primary and corporate agents is *not* that the former are individuals and the latter are organizations, but instead that the former are groups (categories) of otherwise unconnected individuals with no say in social policy, and the latter are groups which are organized and articulate. I haven't read *Being Human*; if she says something different there, it's a change of position. But I agree that corporate agents are emergent from primary agents, and that they are in effect pressure groups. I'll quibble with the idea that "the need for social solidarity is bound up with the struggle against 'social bondage'" -- after all, humans are deeply social creatures and need forms of affiliation (friendship, family, colleagues, community, etc). Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for someone to comment on whether or not "agent" and "person" are equivalent in RB's understanding. Cheers, T. --- Tobin Nellhaus nellhaus-AT-mail.com "Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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