Implications for Pondering Some Complexities of Causality and Meaning

Abstract

This chapter presents some implications and applications of the theoretical framework that is presented in Chapters 5, 6, and 7. It first shows that the theoretical framework provides a basis for thinking about how action involves varied kinds of causes. To go beyond conventional analyses of deterministic causality, this chapter explains how action is constituted by the structuring of individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes. It also considers how these constitutive processes may both enable and constrain action. The theoretical framework is used to think about context in terms of active processes that both shape and are shaped by what people do. The chapter then considers some implications of the theoretical framework for understanding the meaning of action in terms of individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes.