---original---
There is no outside to relations of power - that was my point about
emergence. Agency is a construct of relations of power - it emerges in that
relation and exists while there is a relation.
I'm not sure he says "likely" to disappear in the future so much as that
it's a possibility at some point. Or maybe likely in the long-term future.
Certainly he doesn't see its demise near.
Power relations constrain agency because they create it in teh first place.
Perhaps my statement confuses the matter - it certainly does presume a
notion of autonomous agency. I don't, however, think that such a possibility
has to be real - just a concept. That absolute agency is "constrained"
(although really created in a lesser fashion) by relations of power.
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Then the answer is that "free will" (in the Kantian sense of "autonomy")
doesn't exist and is constructed by power relations. How can I
reconcile this with the ethical stance of constructing one's self as a
work of art? If, no matter in what type of agency, my free will is
constrained as to have some things concealed from me and others revealed,
how can I construct myself into a perfect work of art? In other words,
in a deterministic reality, how do I have the choice to form myself?
Any descision I make rises directly out of the constraints of power
relations. I am not constructing myself, I am being constructed.
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There is no outside to relations of power - that was my point about
emergence. Agency is a construct of relations of power - it emerges in that
relation and exists while there is a relation.
I'm not sure he says "likely" to disappear in the future so much as that
it's a possibility at some point. Or maybe likely in the long-term future.
Certainly he doesn't see its demise near.
Power relations constrain agency because they create it in teh first place.
Perhaps my statement confuses the matter - it certainly does presume a
notion of autonomous agency. I don't, however, think that such a possibility
has to be real - just a concept. That absolute agency is "constrained"
(although really created in a lesser fashion) by relations of power.
--------------
Then the answer is that "free will" (in the Kantian sense of "autonomy")
doesn't exist and is constructed by power relations. How can I
reconcile this with the ethical stance of constructing one's self as a
work of art? If, no matter in what type of agency, my free will is
constrained as to have some things concealed from me and others revealed,
how can I construct myself into a perfect work of art? In other words,
in a deterministic reality, how do I have the choice to form myself?
Any descision I make rises directly out of the constraints of power
relations. I am not constructing myself, I am being constructed.
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com