Una prospettiva sull’agency: Michael E. Bratman

Abstract

In this paper I intend to reconstruct Bratman’s perspective on human agency by focusing on his attempt to defend the agent’s role within an event-causal theory of action. I begin by analysing the role of the agent’s intentions in Bratman’s account of action, then I elaborate on the interrelations among what Bratman considers to be the main features of a full-blown agency (strong reflectiveness, planning agency, temporally extended agency). My aim is to make explicit the reasons why Bratman’s causal approach runs up against the same difficulties as the “standard” causalism from which Bratman wants to emancipate himself.