File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2002/bhaskar.0202, message 135


From: "Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus-AT-gis.net>
Subject: BHA: Re: Persons/agents
Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 16:25:00 -0500


Hi Ruth--

> I don't think that there is any question that RB thinks that
> collectivities exist, or that they have effects.  So as I said,
> the question is: with respect to intentionality, are they more
> like structures or more like individuals?  My hunch would be
> the latter, which would imply that the answer to your question
> is that "agent" is, indeed, a broader category than that of
> "person."

I agree with your argument here.  But for collectivities (really,
organizations) to be agents, agents can't be synonymous with persons -- the
concept has to identify *some* aspects of person, but not others.  Clearly
intentionality is one such aspect, which arguably has a parallel in
organizations.  We can probably identify others by drawing further analogies
between people and organizations.  But it would be better if we could
establish that the relationship between people and organizations was not
just one of analogy, but of each manifesting the characteristics that define
agents.  I'm not sure how to obtain such a definition.

> An interesting related question, I think, is has to do with the
> difference(s) between collectivities and structures.  Although
> he sometimes (curiously, in my view) sounds as though he
> is saying that structures are not bearers of (efficient) causal
> powers [giving rise to Benton's charge of an implicit
> methodological individualism in PON], for a bunch of reasons
> I think we have to read him as thinking that structures ARE
> bearers of causal powers.  What they are not bearers of,
> however, are intentions.

In PON2, RB is pretty clear that structures possess causal powers
(generative mechanisms) -- see e.g. p 170.

Cheers, T.

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





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