Carlos Pires wrote:
> —snip—
>
> Quick note, though I have no sources to quote at the moment:
>
> "Agency" stems from the latin "augere" which means "to augment", supposedly to mean that the agent was someone who augmented the power and reach of Rome. I don't know why OED doesn't have that in their entry.
> I will be back with the source if I can find it.
>
> —snip—
>
Reply to my dumb self:
"Agency" is not etymologically related to "augere"...
This is what I was trying to recall, but got all wrong:
----
(...) In the Romans’ political understanding, the founding of Rome assumed a central place. This founding was “holy” in the sense that “what once was founded remained binding on all subsequent generations” (Arendt, 1994, p. 187). This attachment and responsibility to the past was part of the Roman religion. The term and concept of “auctoritas,” the basis for the English term “authority,” appeared in connection with this combination of political and religious affairs. Auctoritas was a derivative of the verb “augere” which means “to enlarge,” “to augment.” What “authority, or those who administered it, continuously augmented was the founding” (p. 188). (...)
Kurz-Milcke, Elke (2004), ‘The Authority of Representations’, Experts in Science and Society, p.284.
----
This is a very interesting article I do recommend to anyone looking into matters related with authority, agency and representation.
Best regards,
==================================
Carlos Pires
[log in to unmask]
[log in to unmask]
-------------------------------------------------------------
Design & New Media MFA // Communication Design PhD Student @ FBA-UL
Check the project blog:
http://thegolemproject.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|