16086
Advanced seminar
Contemporary perspectives on Agency and Autonomy
Manon Garcia
Comments
The concept of agency, broadly understood as the capacity to act, influence events, and shape one’s life, has been a central topic in many philosophical traditions, including action theory, moral philosophy, and political theory. From G.E.M. Anscombe‘s Intention (Anscombe 1957) to Donald Davidson‘s causal theory of action (Davidson 1980), traditional frameworks largely conceive of agency as tied to intentional and autonomous acts. These dominant approaches often emphasize agency as an active, intentional process grounded in the individual actor‘s mental states, intentions, and beliefs.
Feminist philosophy, decolonial philosophy, and continental philosophy, especially critical theories, however, have shown that oppression, inequality, and structures of desire and pleasure have strong effects on capacities to act and to see oneself as an agent. Put broadly, there are currently two separated literatures on agency in philosophy, one deemed analytic, that focuses on theory of action, one more continental, informed by social sciences and feminist theory, that focuses on agency and power.
In this course, we will read these two traditions with the hope of putting them in productive discussion with one another. close
16 Class schedule
Regular appointments
Tue, 2025-10-14 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2025-10-21 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2025-10-28 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2025-11-04 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2025-11-11 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2025-11-18 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2025-11-25 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2025-12-02 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2025-12-09 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2025-12-16 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2026-01-06 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2026-01-13 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2026-01-20 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2026-01-27 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2026-02-03 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2026-02-10 12:00 - 14:00