Dear Luke,
Been following this interesting thread. I’m writing to suggest clarity in terms.
Agency is a property, but agency does not belong to the agent. It belong to the principal. The principal delegates agency to an agent, empowering the agent to act on behalf of the principal.
When we speak of human agents, therefore, a film star is an example of a principal, while the star’s agent negotiates on behalf of the star for roles, points, fees, and so on.
An owner of property is a principal. The property owner delegates agency to a broker or real estate agent for sale, management, or other services.
In this sense, principals must possess responsibility and they must generally use language to be able to take responsibility or delegate agency.
In contrast, there some forms of agent may not require language to function on behalf of a principal. This is where the confusion often arises in some forms of actor-network theory. A tool or an artefact may be an agent — ANT uses the term “actant” — without becoming a principal.
Things that merely mediate the decisions or actions of a principal do not thereby acquire the quality of agency. They act as agents.
There are two special cases involving language.
The first is thinking and communicating beings who may not use language as we do. Some principals act and possess agency of their own without necessarily being able to transfer agency to agents through language. This is the case of non-human tool-using primates. These primates possess agency. Tools may mediate their decisions or actions, but the tools don’t become principals. The tools remain agents.
The second case involves the philosophical system of Karen Barad and others who adopt the framework of agential realism. I don’t try to explain that here, but agency seems to function differently.
In the terms that I have been using, agency is the property of a principal, who may sometimes be labeled a principal actor. Agency always belongs to someone who should be qualified as a “who,” human or non-human.
An agent, in contrast, may be a “who” or an “it.” The agent executes delegated agency by acting on behalf of a who or by mediating the decisions and actions of a who.
Your question to Klaus made good sense, but it became confusing at the end where it seemed to conflate the property of agency with the nature of the agent. I may be wrong on your intended question, but in my view it is the principal who possesses agency, and not the agent.
Yours,
Ken
Ken Friedman, Ph.D., D.Sc. (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/
Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| Visiting Professor | Faculty of Engineering | Lund University ||| Email [log in to unmask] | Academia https://tongji.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn
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