Individual Submission Summary
Share...

Direct link:

Two Explanatory Issues with Agency (and Three Solutions)

Tue, August 23, 12:30 to 1:30pm, TBA

Abstract

In sociology, one finds the agency concept justified by its explanatory virtue. I explore two issues that arise in efforts to deploy agency in sociological explanations—begging the question and misplaced concreteness. In the former, the researcher assumes the explanatory virtue of agency. In the latter, the researcher reifies the agency concept, such that agency stands in for a range of human motivations and actions. As such, a concept intended to do justice to the complex nature of human action can obscure our characterizations of human action. I offer three solutions to these explanatory difficulties: 1) employing an empirically precise, problem-solving understanding of agency, 2) finding a locally-specific language for “agency” and 3) relegating “agency” to the context of discovery.

Author