Of agents and patients: mapping human agency via philosophical ontology

Abstract

Human agency has proven to be a contested issue. This article seeks to delineate the boundaries of the discussion and map out what are arguably the main alternatives within it for development research and practice. Since such discussion deals with the question of what human agency is, the argument is elaborated from the philosophy of science. Contra convention, the discussion uses a philosophical ontology, which is concerned with out connection to the world. Jackson’s heuristic is adopted to generate four philosophies of science and four notions of agency, regarded as ideal typical. Neopositivism advances a rational agent, reflexivity suggests a patient, critical realism furthers an interagent, and analyticism proposes a transagent. This article invites scholars interested in this increasingly interdisciplinary area to raise their awareness regarding the foundations on which their ideas about human agency build and note the implications they have for research and practice.

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