The Metaphysics of Agency - Lecture III. . Agency and Time

Jennifer Hornsby (Birkbeck College, University of London, All Souls College, Oxford University)

The Metaphysics of Agency

[Abstract]

There is agency, one might say, when something does something. A something that does things—an agent—may be a person, a non-human animal, or an inanimate object. Things that may be done by something are many and various (exactly the range of do-able things evidently depends upon the sort of agent in question). In the course of these lectures I introduce, and attempt to answer, a variety of inter-related metaphysical questions that arise in connection with agency – whether, human, animal or inanimate. I suggest that a correct philosophy of mind requires a correct understanding of causality, and that this is an understanding best brought to the fore by considering what agency itself (in any of its varieties) involves.

Lecture III. Agency and Time

6 November (Monday) 15:30 p.m. 

[Abstract]

Much of the philosophical debate about time invites us to treat eternalism, possibilism and presentism as rival models of time between which we must choose. I consider how the data of agency may affect such a choice. I think that an idea of that which is (or was) ongoing [cp. the imperfective aspect of lecture 1] is inadequately understood in much of the philosophical literature on time. I’ll conclude with a suggestion about the understanding of tensed language.