File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2002/bhaskar.0202, message 131


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



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