Temporalizing agency: Moving beyond on- and offline cognition

Abstract

In this article we reconsider the relation between time and agency that is at the heart of the current distinction between online and offline cognition. Mainstream psychology starts out with an abstract notion of time, in which only the current moment is real. Therefore persisting representations are necessary for agents to make their way across time. We take Gibson and Heidegger to offer a different account of the relation between time and agency. Their theories suggest that, by taking agents in their world as coordinated motion, the need for representations disappears. We extend this picture of human involvement by showing how this can account for the concept of time by retaining its relational, situated structure. Finally, we return to the distinction between on- and offline cognition and show that offline cognition need not be considered a different type of cognition, but only a different mode of coordinating: offline cognition in such a view is not a return to the internal manipulation of content; rather, it is a contentless, unstable mode of coordinating to the world in which the relational constitution of agency falters.