The fabric of agency
Navigating human potentialities through introspection
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12300985 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Leonardo Orlando (0000-0002-4277-9417, Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 51 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 467-481 |
| Publication date | 2020-09-10 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Security Dialogue (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0967-0106 • E-ISSN: 1460-3640 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0967010620941391 |
| OpenAlex | W3085340165 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 53 |
Building on new trends in neuroscience and philosophy of mind, this article provides a roadmap for incorporating consciousness into social research. Drawing upon Alexander Wendt’s Quantum Mind and Social Science, it is argued that one of the greatest obstacles encountered by social research when approaching social reality is that it provides neither an epistemological nor an ontological place for consciousness. The present article intends to address that problem by introducing a sophisticated method of guided introspection that has the potential to revolutionize our understanding of agency. This method, whose epistemological situation is isomorphic to that of quantum physics, enables researchers to gain insight into the structures of decisionmaking processes. Such an endeavor is extremely relevant for security studies: the consideration of consciousness could lead to a radical new understanding of the dynamics of conflict, cooperation, strategic defense, political polarization, radicalization, violent extremism, and terrorism, as well as of the processes of social transformation required to cope with climate change. Moreover, bringing consciousness into social research could foster ongoing biological, evolutionary, and neuroscientific approaches to international relations. Thus, through the introduction of the ‘phenomenal consciousness’ of actors, it is shown how we can dive into the fountainhead of human agency and map mental processes
Agency (philosophy · Consciousness · Epistemology · Introspection · Political science · Politics · Radicalization · Social consciousness · Social science · Sociology · Terrorism · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation · Law · Neuroethics, Human Enhancement, Biomedical Innovations · Philosophy · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
Consciousness explained
Quantum Models of Cognition and Decision
Quantum Social Science
Affective Neuroscience
Quantum Mind and Social Science
Quantum Mechanics and Experience
Failure to Detect Mismatches Between Intention and Outcome in a Simple Decision Task
On a confusion about a function of consciousness
The genetics of politics
Goals, Attention, and (Un)Consciousness
Discovering the structures of lived experience
The emotional dog and its rational tail
On The Language Instinct
The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism
Telling more than we can know
The Oxford Handbook of International Security
How something can be said about telling more than we can know
A gap in Nisbett and Wilson’s findings? A first-person access to our cognitive processes
L'entretien d'explicitation
The Better Angels of Our Nature
The Study of International Politics in the Neurobiological Revolution
Why did they do that
Survival of the Disciplines
What It Feels Like to Be in a Superposition. And Why
Blueprint
What Is It Like to Be a Bat
Driving with the Rearview Mirror
So Why Do People Fight? Evolutionary Theory and the Causes of War
Is War in Our Nature
Social Theory as a Cognitive Neuroscience
| Citations per year | 0.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2020 - 2023 (4) |
| Highly cited | No |