Theory Of Human Agency Research Articles

Addressing postmodernity: Kenneth Burke, rhetoric, and a theory of social change

Biesecker reveals the full range of Kenneth Burke's contribution to the possibility of social change. In Addressing Postmodernity, Barbara Biesecker examines the relationship between rhetoric and social change and the ways human beings transform social relations through the purposeful use of symbols. In discerning the conditions of possibility for social transformation and the role of human beings and rhetoric in it, Biesecker turns to the seminal work of Kenneth Burke. Through a close reading of Burke's major works, A Grammar of Motives, A Rhetoric of Motives, and The Rhetoric of Religion: Studies in Logology, Biesecker addresses the critical topic of thefragmentation of the contemporary lifeworld. As Biesecker shows, postmodernity will have a major impact on Burkeian scholarship and on the rhetorical critique of social relations in general. Biesecker confronts directly the challenges posed by postmodernity to social theorists and critics alike. In juxtaposing the work of Burke and Jurgen Habermas, Biesecker argues that a radicalized rereading of Burke's theory of the negative opens the way toward a resolutely rhetorical theory of social change and human agency.

Some philosophical implications of Bandura's social cognitive theory of human agency.

Some philosophical implications of Bandura's social cognitive theory of human agency.

Some philosophical implications of Bandura's social cognitive theory of human agency.

Some philosophical implications of Bandura's social cognitive theory of human agency.

Whitehead's Theory of Human Agency

An adequate theory of the self must provide for the fact of human agency. I would like to show that (1) we can put together a theory of human agency from Whitehead's later writings, but that (2) this theory is not satisfactory. This discussion will be, first, expository and then critical of Whitehead's position. An elaboration of Whitehead's theory has two moments. For Whitehead, all factors of the universe are finally derivative from the ultimately actual things, which he calls actual entities. The fact of agency is no exception. The establishment of such agency is the job of what I shall call Whitehead's microscopic theory. We are interested here, however, in the human being as agent. A person, according to Whitehead, is not an actual entity, but a society of actual entities. Whitehead's theory of human agency may be called the macroscopic theory. After an examination of these theories, I shall conclude by briefly criticizing them in two ways. First, for Whitehead there are no acts but only processes. Second, an adequate theory requires a doctrine of the persistence of the agent which Whitehead is unable to provide.