CFP: Rethinking Agency under Non-Ideal Conditions

CfP: Rethinking Agency under Non-Ideal Conditions

The notion of agency plays a central role across many areas of philosophy, including philosophy of action, ethics, political philosophy, epistemology, feminist philosophy, and phenomenology. While traditionally conceptualized in terms of intentional action, rational control, and autonomy, our understanding of agency has recently come under intense scrutiny and is now being increasingly transformed. Feminist and phenomenological approaches, in particular, have emphasized the need for a richer and more fine-grained conception of agency—one that takes seriously the social, historical, and relational contexts in which agents are situated. From this perspective, agency cannot be adequately understood without acknowledging that agents are not only rational decision-makers, but also emotional, embodied, desiring, creative, and affective beings.

This conference invites new investigations into agency as it is lived and exercised under non-ideal conditions, such as vulnerability, dependency, uncertainty, coercion, structural injustice, affective ambivalence, or crisis. Rather than presupposing idealized models of action and rational control, the conference aims to analyze how agency isreconfigured under such conditions. We also particularly welcome contributions that examine how rational and virtuous agency should be rethought under non-ideal conditions and in times of crisis.

Possible questions include (but are not limited to):

• How can agency and autonomy be understood from a phenomenological perspective?
• How can accounts of agency be expanded to include non-human forms of agency, such as animal agency?
• How should we rethink rational and/or virtuous agency in a non-idealized framework?
• What role do affective, embodied, and imaginative capacities play in sustaining rational and virtuous agency?
• What is the relationship between beliefs, credences, emotions, and actions?
• Can ambivalence be compatible with (rational) agency?

In addition to contemporary approaches, we explicitly welcome historical-philosophical work, including contributions engaging with the phenomenological tradition, as well as those that critically engage with accounts of agency from marginalized figures and traditions in the history of philosophy.

Contributions from early-career researchers are especially encouraged.

Confirmed speakers: Maria Alvarez, Havi Carel, Hanne Jacobs, Quill Kukla, Kristina Musholt and Caleb Ward.

We invite you to submit an anonymized abstract of up to 500 words by October 31, 2026 to [email protected]

Please include a separate file with your name, email address, the title of your talk, and your affiliation (if any) and put ‘Rethinking Agency Graz 2027’ in the subject line.

Organizing Team: Emanuela Carta, Denis Dzanic, and Daniel Neumann.