Operating at the boundaries of philosophy of mind, cognitive science, politics and social theory, this thesis aims to develop an interdisciplinary model of the relationship between agency and structure. This thesis explores the question of why the agency/structure argument in the social sciences has not yet been resolved and argues for an interdisciplinary model of agency to be utilised by social theory. In the wake of poststructuralism there has been a gravitation back towards characterising the terms of this debate in more strongly dichotomous terms, arguing for the autonomy of agency in particular as a natural kind. This trend can be seen most clearly in Archer's analytical dualism within the morphogenetic theory of social elaboration, where the desire for the clarity of dualist terms has become tangled with claims to ontology. I suggest that this tendency is not limited to social theory, but is characteristic of the neoliberal political environment from which such theory is being produced, understood and utilised. Understanding the way in which our political and social context influences the ways in which we may understand or conceptualise a problem such as this, establishing the logical intuition and methods which we use to do this kind of deductive reasoning, is key for both performing the philosophical task of engaging in the agency-structure debate, but is thoroughly interrelated with how we need to conceptualise that relationship itself. It is both the method and the content, the 'how' and the 'what', of investigating the relationship between external social structures and the feeling of autonomous authorship and choice. I argue that the political value system inherent to neoliberal and economic logics, which prioritise and naturalise individuality and autonomous, internal agentic capacity, works to make the experience of agency appear inevitable and universal. This thesis engages with the assumptions that underpin this illusion, looking to philosophy of mind in order to etch out a framework for understanding agency. This framework has two necessary components. Firstly, that it acknowledges the experience of agency as real, and that as a way-of-being-in-the- world it is necessary to continue to explore how individuals experience agency in their environments. Secondly, and most importantly, that this 'realism' about agency, does not inevitably indicate that agency has an ontological and epistemological reality that transcends the particular social and political contexts in which it makes sense. The thesis explores how the fundamental components of agency, intelligence and cognition are produced in the interrelationships between a subject and their physical, social and political environment. The argument presented is that deliberative consciousness and self-awareness emerge as a response to, and as an effect of, complex social interaction. In contrast to Archer's conception of the sui generis, causal efficacy of reflexive agency, this thesis argues that smooth, embodied, coping with the environment is the preferred mode of interacting with the world. By critically engaging with the idea that those studying social dynamics should conceptualize agency as internal and inherent the thesis explores and critiques the prevalent use of the term 'agency' within social theory, arguing that an explicit engagement with what agency is is an understudied but fundamental and necessary philosophical task within sociology. A strong position is proposed that social institutions not only precede the self-aware, experience of choice and autonomy, but actively produce it. This proposition stands in opposition to dualistic notions of agency and structure as they are conceived by critical realism. This has widespread political implications in a field that often assumes agency to be an intrinsic part of human nature that stands outside of socialisation. This goal of this thesis is to demonstrate that in order to understand the experience of agency within our particular contexts and how it manifests as a force for social change, social theory must engage critically with philosophy of consciousness.

Neste estudo, os conceitos e mecanismos da governança empresarial foram revisados para identificar os instrumentos e elementos que possibilitam seu efetivo exercício aos responsáveis pela determinação dos rumos das empresas. Apoiados na constatação de que não existe governança sem controle e que a mesma depende da estruturação de um quadro completo de avaliação do desempenho que permita monitorar não apenas a gestão dos recursos como também os riscos associados, como os de agenciamento. Assim, emerge a necessidade de garantir a independência e isenção dessa avaliação, o que demanda a existência de um órgão especializado e unificado para realizar tal controle, independente das demais unidades com tarefas de caráter executivo. A atribuição desse órgão seria avaliar e controlar as diversas divisões da empresa e servir como instrumento de apoio e conexão, tanto à atividade de gerir, como de controlar e reportar o desempenho vinculado ao risco desses gestores. Demonstra-se que tais atribuições possuem identificação com as funções primordiais da Área de Controladoria, cujo sistema contábil-financeiro de informações é instrumento poderoso e insubstituível no rastreamento e identificação do processo de criação e erosão do valor da empresa por meio das diversas unidades das organizações. Conclui-se que a Controladoria deve ser reformulada para incorporar novas métricas e procedimentos de monitoração do desempenho vinculado ao risco. Desse modo, é proposta uma nova posição da Área na estrutura empresarial, que garanta independência a seu titular por meio do reporte simultâneo ao principal executivo e ao Conselho de Administração e, por extensão, aos acionistas/proprietários. / This dissertation revise concepts and mechanisms of corporate governance, to identify which are the elements and instruments that make it possible to the responsible ones, to determine the corporation?s lines of direction, its effective action. From the evidence that there is no governance without control, and that it depends, therefore, on the structuring of a complete performance evaluation chart allowing to monitor not only the management of resources, but also the linked risks, among them the agency risk, it emerges the need of guaranteeing the independence and the exemption of such evaluation, which requires the existence of a unified and specialized organ to manage this control independently of the remaining units, that carry executive tasks out. This organ should evaluate and control the several divisions of the corporation and work as an instrument of support and connection, not only to the management activity, but also to the activity of controlling and reporting the performance bounded, to these manager?s risk. Evidence is given that such attributions are identified with the primordial functions of the Controlling Area, whose accounting-financial system is a powerful and non-replaceable instrument to track and identify the creation and erosion process of the corporation value through the several units of the organizations. It is, therefore, concluded that the Control Area should be reformulated in a way to incorporate new measures and procedures for monitoring performance linked to risks and it is proposed a new position of the said Area in the entrepreneurial structure, thus guaranteeing independence to its head through a simultaneous reporting to the main executive of the Board, and by extension, to the shareholders/owners.

Changing notions of marriage and family across the globe—from kinship obligation, social reproduction, and complementary labour to an ideal of marriage based on affective bonds, emotional intimacy, and pleasure—is widely read as indicating the shift from tradition to modernity. The modern companionate marriage ideal is then linked to a larger cultural transformation: the development of the modern individual self. The emergence of modern conceptions of the self in North America and Western Europe that emphasizes personal autonomy over the authority of the patriarchal family is said to have resulted in the decline of power parents and kin had over the choice of marriage partner with marriage coming to be seen as a person’s individual choice. Moreover, because companionate marriage demands a high degree of emotional and personal commitment it is generally accepted that such marriages must be entered into voluntarily, thereby recasting marriage as a contractual agreement between two people rather than an alliance between two families. Narratives about choice in marriage are, therefore, part of a historical process that emphasizes an “inner self” as integral to modern subjectivity and gives credence to individual agency in intimate relations. My thesis explores how marriage norms, family structures, and kinship relations amongst the middle-class in Sri Lanka have been transformed by social change from the early part of the twentieth century to the present. It aims to understand the ways in which modernity is reconfiguring people’s expectations of intimate relations and shaping women’s experiences and presentations of the ‘self’. In doing so, it attempts to answer three main questions: How do changing expectations of marriage structure people’s narratives about individual agency? To what extent do kinship obligations, caste considerations, and class mobility structure people’s choices in marriage? And finally, what implications do these findings have for the feminist theorization of agency and personhood? Based on fifteen months of fieldwork amongst Sinhala Buddhist middle-class families living in the city of Colombo, I argue that the urban middle-class in Sri Lanka have collectively invested in the narrative of choice through which a choosing person is consciously created as a mark of modernity and progress. However, people’s life histories show how, rather than indicating a radical shift in the way people negotiated between individual desires and social norms, the emphasis on choice signals a shift in the narrative devices used in the presentation of the self. Moreover, I argue that rather than signalling freedom, these narratives reveal how people are often burdened with the risks and responsibility of agency and grapple with making the “right” choices. By carefully deconstructing people’s anxieties that underline their narratives about choosing the right kind of partner, I reveal how choices are, in fact, structured by social norms and the expectations of family. I argue that marriage continues to be a principal strategy for social mobility and the assertion of status in contemporary Sri Lanka. Therefore, I demonstrate how caste and class considerations form the basis on which collective manoeuvring is undertaken to influence individual choices. I then argue that the trope of individual agency is not universal to all narratives about marriage and family. By examining alternative stories about marriage that defy the accepted convention I show how narratives of agency, which are deployed in certain contexts, are downplayed or denied in others; that the ‘self’, which is presented as making individual choices and actively shaping its own destiny in one context, is presented as the object of fate and circumstance in others. I conclude that because what it means to be middle-class is always a process of negotiation between competing and contradictory notions of tradition and modernity, people’s presentation of the self reveal the perpetual striving that seems to characterise modern subjectivity.

Purpose: The present thesis aims to gain insight into parents’ perceptions of their children’s agentic role while raising them in Greek-bilingual families. The study was conducted within the field of family language policy and family bilingualism. Methods: A small-scale, qualitative study was designed, which included semi-structured interviews with parents of bilingual preschoolers, residing in Patras, Greece. Six participants were interviewed and audio-recorded. Then, the transcriptions were translated into English and finally analysed using thematic analysis. Parents were interviewed regarding their children’s use of languages concerning to the possibility to influence changes in their everyday lives as bilingual families. Results: According to the findings of this study, parents within Greek-bilingual families argue that their children negotiate their own language acquisition and the language use of the adults around them. Specifically, parents think that their children a) influence parents’ confidence in the chosen language policy, b) resist to inconsistent language use, and c) influence the parents’ language use. Conclusions: The present thesis highlights what parents within Greek-bilingual families think about their children’s agentic role regarding influencing changes in the family language policy and the socialization of members of the family. The small-scaled study entails that the results give the readers an insightful account, instead of absolute truth. Results of the study motivate further research on the agentic role of children in Greek families and its implementation on how childhood is experienced.

Stereotype threat is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when individuals become aware that their behavior could potentially confirm a negative stereotype. Though stereotype threat is a widely studied phenomenon in social psychology, there has been relatively little scholarship on it in philosophy, despite its relevance to issues such as implicit cognition, epistemic injustice, and diversity in philosophy. However, most psychological research on stereotype threat discusses the phenomenon by using an overly narrow picture of it, which focuses on one of its effects: the ability to hinder performance. As a result, almost all philosophical work on stereotype threat is solely focused on issues of performance too. Social psychologists know that stereotype threat has additional effects, such as negatively impacting individuals’ motivation, interests, long-term health, and even their sense of self, but these other effects are often downplayed, or even forgotten about. Therefore, the “standard picture” of stereotype threat needs to be expanded, in order to better understand the theoretical aspects of the phenomenon, and to develop broader, more effective interventions. This dissertation develops such an “expanded picture” of stereotype threat, which emphasizes how the phenomenon can negatively impact both self-identity and epistemic agency. In doing so, I explore the nature of stereotypes more generally and argue that they undermine groups’ moral status and contribute to what is called “ontic injustice.” I also show how stereotype threat harms members of socially subordinated groups by way of coercing their self-identity and undermining their epistemic agency, which I argue is a form of epistemic injustice. Lastly, I analyze the expanded picture’s implications for addressing the low proportion of women in professional philosophy. I critically engage recent arguments that these low numbers simply reflect different interests women have, which if innate or benign, would require no intervention. My expanded picture shows the mistakes in this sort of reasoning, which is also present in discussions on the underrepresentation of women in science. The expanded picture of stereotype threat that this dissertation develops is not only practically important, but also advances key philosophical debates in social epistemology, applied ethics, and social metaphysics.

This thesis is about corporate attribution in private law. Unlike human persons, companies are artificial legal persons. They lack a physical body with which to act, and a mind with which to think. English law therefore developed the concept of attribution so that legal rules could be applied to companies. Attribution is the process of legal reasoning by which the acts and states of mind of human individuals acting for a company are treated as that of the company, so as to establish the company’s rights against and obligations owed to other parties. This thesis examines the rules of attribution across the private law of obligations, focusing on the law of contract, tort, unjust enrichment, and selected aspects of equitable liability. Three main arguments are made in this thesis. First, there is a sharp distinction between the rules of attribution and the substantive rules of private law to which they apply. The former belongs in the law of persons, and it concerns when the acts and states of mind of an individual can be attributed to a company. The latter belongs in the law of obligations. Second, the same rules of attribution should be, and have largely been used across the entire expanse of private law. Regardless of the area of private law in which the question of attribution arises, the same question is being asked, and so the law’s answer should be the same. Like should be treated alike. This is normatively desirable, because it ensures coherence across private law. Third, it is therefore possible to state the rules of attribution that apply in private law. The acts of an individual A will be attributed to the company C where they were (i) specifically authorised (‘specific authority’), (ii) where A performs an act within the class of acts that A has power to do on behalf of C, even if A is acting in breach of duty (‘actual authority’), or (iii) where A has either been placed in a position or been held out by C such that a reasonable person in the position of a third party would reasonably believe that A had the power to act for C (‘apparent authority’). A’s knowledge will be attributed to C where it is material to the class of acts that A had specific or actual authority to do on behalf of C. Although commonly thought to be a series of diverse, disparate rules found in different doctrines and different areas of law, the rules of attribution form a remarkably coherent, consistent whole across private law.

Based on ethnographic research with Class V students (generally aged 9-11 years old), their teachers and parents, this thesis explores how gendered and classed identities are constructed in two MCD government elementary schools and one Kindergarten-Class XII (K-XII) private school in West Delhi, India. I consider how local, national and global understandings of gender, class and education shape and are shaped by these identities. Through this thesis, I highlight a conformity of aspirations, among both boys and girls, in the two government and one private school, in which education is viewed as a route achieve middle class lifestyles and careers. Across the schools, students’ identities are shaped within a middle-class culture of schooling in which students are expected to be on track to become individual, self-responsiblised, entrepreneurial subjects who are committed to the development of the nation. However, more importantly, schools encourage students to develop relational identities in which they pursue individual aspirations within the broader context of an emphasis on the prioritisation of family, the nation and religion. As a result, both a (neoliberal) middle class culture of schooling and- more importantly- (Hindu) religious nationalist notions of national identity play a central role in shaping the classed and gendered identities of students in these primary schools. Within the framework of Hindu cosmopolitanism, it is the Hindu, middle-class boy that emerges as the normative school child, against which both girls and the ‘poor’/working class are placed in deficit.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T18:11:42Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Jose Antonio Baeta Zille.pdf: 1050881 bytes, checksum: 434230b3eaaca6b54f75bec10ccad4c1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-06-05 / Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais / The increase of complexity and of players participation in videogames constitutes important changes in the development of videogames. When a player s universe is amplified, when players partake in a game that changes their role from players to creator-players, and when certain techniques are used to allow the player to participate more fully in a game, this trend in development can be seen. Our hypothesis is that this development is a result of the agency potential of videogames. This raises the question: how has the increase in the agency potential of such games affected players? This research focuses on the user subjects and their changes in cognition/perception and creativity, and in the increase of their subjectivity. In order to discuss in detail the concepts of interactivity, creativity, and the increase in subjectivity and the cognitive process, this study uses the concepts of agencement (Deleuze and Guattari, 1993), and of agency (Murray, 1997). Based on these discussions, aspects of a selected sample of games were analyzed, bringing to attention those aspects which confirm an increase of changes in the users as the agency is amplified. The sample of games selected for analysis was chosen by considering those whose historical development exhibited greater complexity in the agency array and a greater level of player participation; narrative characteristics were also considered. The games selected for this study were: Computer Space (1971), the first mass-produced videogame; Myst (1993), in which there is a closed interactive narrative; and The Sims 3 (2009), which plays under an open interactive narrative. Videogames can be considered to be cultural environments which yield dialogue through sign processes between the game s creators, players, and the game s own universe. It is our intent to gain a better understanding of the mechanism of this communication process. This understanding, besides contributing a better understanding of human vicissitudes, will make it possible for new knowledge to be transposed to other fields of study, and will enrich the intrinsic cultural environments of videogames / Os games vêm passando por grandes modificações, principalmente quanto à sua complexidade e à tendência de intensificação do grau de participação de seus usuários. Isso se explicita no momento em que seu universo é ampliado, são utilizadas determinadas técnicas e se lhes inserem certos conceitos, bem como quando convocam os usuários a participar de forma mais efetiva do jogo, deslocando-os da posição de jogador para a de jogador-criador . Nossa hipótese é que isso ocorre devido ao aumento do potencial de agenciamento do game. Esse estado de coisas remete à seguinte questão: quais têm sido as consequências, para o jogador, do aumento do potencial agenciador dos games? Sob essa perspectiva, esta pesquisa está voltada às consequências, no sujeito usuário, relativas ao desenvolvimento da criatividade e a modificações de aspectos cognitivos/perceptivos, assim como a mudanças na construção da subjetividade desses usuários. Nesse sentido, o trabalho se funda nos conceitos de agencement, de Deleuze e Guattari (1993), e de agency, de Murray (1997), para atingir seu objetivo principal, que é discutir os conceitos de interatividade, de criatividade e aqueles relacionados à construção da subjetividade e do processo cognitivo, em especial a concepção de uma cognição distribuída. Com base nessas discussões, são feitas análises dos aspectos contidos no corpus selecionado de games, denunciando aqueles que ratificam a potencialização das modificações nos usuários, na medida em que se amplia o agenciamento. O corpus foi definido levando em conta o desenvolvimento histórico dos games na direção de um aumento no grau de complexidade no arranjo agenciador e de participação do jogador nos destinos do jogo, e, ainda, tendo como base suas características narrativas. Nesse sentido, foram selecionados o Computer Space (1971), com sua narrativa praticamente nula, primeiro game a ser produzido em grande escala; o Myst (1993), em que se estabelece uma narrativa interativa fechada; e, por fim, The Sims 3 (2009), que se desenvolve sob uma narrativa interativa aberta. Considerando-se os games como um sistema de cultura que possibilita o diálogo por meio de processos sígnicos entre aquele que o concebe, aquele que dele se utiliza e todo o universo inerente a eles, games, a pesquisa corrobora a maior compreensão da ecologia desse processo de comunicação. Entender melhor esse processo e seus reflexos, além de contribuir para uma compreensão mais ampla das vicissitudes humanas, possibilitará transpor os conhecimentos obtidos para outros campos do saber. Além disso, estar-se-á proporcionando um enriquecimento dos sistemas culturais intrínsecos aos games

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T18:11:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Luciana Moherdaui.pdf: 56225694 bytes, checksum: 0ab074923ee8e7ae5e1f6842f540d10b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-05-25 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This research analyzes the news on the Web interface, although the finding can be extended to other protocols and applications (apps). The main objective is to rethink the view of news circulating in the right flow. The migration of static page culture to the culture data (BERNERS-LEE, 2009) changed the pattern of communication prevailed in the 20th century. The following terms were incorporated into the transmission, publication and reception: annotate, comment, reply, add, cut, share, download, upload, input and output. (MANOVICH, 2008, p. 226). This thesis assumes that journalism projects for the Internet are made under the logic of the printing press, with hierarchy and in columns (NELSON, 2000) when the current dynamics of the implosion of the page indicates, the loss of the standardization editorial process. In this reality, the discussion will be based from notions of relay assemblage (DELEUZE; GUATTARI, 2007, p. 180), map (DELEUZE; GUATTARI, 2006, p. 21-23) and theories of Journalism / Esta pesquisa analisa a interface jornalística na Web, embora a conclusão possa ser estendida a outros protocolos e aplicativos. O objetivo principal é repensar a exibição da notícia que circula no fluxo. A migração da cultura de página estática para a cultura de dados (BERNERS-LEE: 2009) modificou o padrão de comunicação que vigorou no século 20. Foram incorporados à transmissão, publicação e recepção os seguintes termos: anotar, comentar, responder, agregar, cortar, compartilhar, download, upload, input e output (MANOVICH: 2008, p. 226). Esta tese parte do pressuposto de que os projetos de Jornalismo para a Internet são constituídos sob a lógica do jornal impresso, com hierarquia e diagramação em colunas (NELSON: 2000) quando a dinâmica atual indica a implosão da página, a perda do processo de padronização editorial. Nesse sentido, a discussão será fundamentada a partir de noções de revezamento, agenciamento (DELEUZE; GUATTARI, 2007, p. 180), mapa (DELEUZE; GUATTARI: 2006, p. 21-23) e teorias do Jornalismo

O presente trabalho busca investigar a relação da díade percepção-ação, especialmente entre percepção de imagem corporal e senso de agência. O estudo também tem como objetivo investigar se a forma como o indivíduo se percebe e seu nível de consciência da ação possuem relação com o índice de massa corporal. Outro objetivo foi avaliar que instrumentos vêm sendo utilizados para medir a imagem corporal. A estrutura da dissertação comporta dois estudos, um de revisão sistemática e outro empírico. A revisão investigou o instrumental de avaliação de imagem corporal em obesos no contexto de intervenção cirúrgica. Os resultados revelaram divergências quanto ao construto de imagem corporal e sua avaliação. O estudo empírico consistiu de uma tarefa experimental de ilusão sensoriomotora que buscou avaliar a relação entre imagem corporal e senso de agência. Os dados apontaram que pessoas com distorções de imagem corporal não tiveram pior desempenho na tarefa, mas apresentaram menor nível de confiança nas suas respostas. / This study aims to investigate the relationship of perception-action dyad, especially between perception of body image and sense of agency. The study also aims to investigate the way the individual perceives and its action level of consciousness are related to body mass index. Another objective was to evaluate what tools have been used to measure body image. The dissertation structure comprises two studies, a systematic review and other empirical. The review investigated the instrumental evaluation of body image in obese surgical intervention in context. The results revealed differences in the body image construct and evaluation. The empirical study consisted of a sensorimotor illusion experimental task was to evaluate the relationship between body image and sense of agency. The data showed that people with body image distortions did not performed worse on the task, but had a lower confidence level in their responses.