These are both issues relevant to Jessica Riskin's 2016 book "The Restless Clock," first brought to my attention by Barbara Ehrenreich's "Natural Causes."
In a recent review of Christopher List's book on free will, I first thought her definition of agency might be the same as his of "intentionality," especially since he seemed to use both words almost interchangeably. Then I recognized my definition may not be Rifkin's. She leaves it a bit fuzzy, as noted in this very good review of her book and may overstate the empirical case that justifies her idea, or does not. Additional reviews, like this, make me wonder if she isn't partly down the rabbit hole of Aristotelean causes, especially with her stress on the theological background of mechanistic agency, and of course, Aristotle dominating late medieval Europe's intellectualism. I halfway think she is trying to thread her way between final and efficient causes, wiht her talk of pass-mechanical and active views of nature.
So, if all of Western philosophy is, to riff on Whitehead, but footnotes to Plato and Aristotle, we have yet another example of needing to burn the original books and throw away most of the footnotes. Tinbergen's Four Questions would be a good start on this vis a vis Aristotle's four causes.
1 comment:
What I do not understand is how Riskin's concept of agency differs from Spinoza's conatus. Specifically the example in the review of a plant stretching towards the sun is to me nothing more than Spinoza's conatus.
In that view, I fully agree that agency is something below the level of consciousness.
But if she is partly down the rabbit hole of Aristotelean causes, then it does differ from the concept of the conatus.
Stressing theological background of mechanistic agency, however, can be construed as an analysis of how a concept such as agency has been "socially constructed" over time. And it has its own value: Unfortunately, when one reads both scientists in medicine, medical practitioners and psychiatrists/psychoanalysts, one really gets the impression that you cannot meet them on their own grounds without mastering the history of such ideas. Because they still haven't completely accepted that they should leave and forget that specific rabbit hole.
Maybe Riskin is engaged in some form of postmodernism without even realising it? Much like Monsieur Jourdain?
Monsieur Jourdain in le Bourgeois Gentilhomme: « By my faith! I have been speaking in prose for more than forty years without knowing it and I am much obliged to you for having taught me that. »
Post a Comment