What Is Agency? A View from Science Studies and Cybernetics

Biological Theory 19 (1):16-21 (2024)
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Abstract

The first part of this essay relates a minimal and primordial concept of agency to be found in science and technology studies to an overall ontology of liveliness. The second part explores the relation between minimal and higher-level conceptions of agency concerning goal-orientedness and adaptation, and moves towards specifically biological concerns via a discussion of cybernetic machines.

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10.1007/s13752-023-00437-1

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Andrew Pickering
University of Exeter

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References found in this work

Reconceptualizing the Organism: From Complex Machine to Flowing Stream.Daniel J. Nicholson - 2018 - In Daniel J. Nicholson & John Dupré (eds.), Everything Flows: Towards a Processual Philosophy of Biology. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
Organisms ≠ Machines.Daniel J. Nicholson - 2013 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (4):669-678.

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