agency
Pronunciation
  • IPA: /ˈeɪ.dʒən.si/
Noun

agency

  1. The capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power.
    Synonyms: action, activity, operation
    • A few advances there are in the following papers tending to assert the superintendence and agency of Providence in the natural world.
  2. (sociology, philosophy, psychology) The capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices.
    cot en
    moral agency
    individual agency
    • 2001, Todd McGowan, The Feminine "No!", SUNY Press (ISBN 9780791448748), page gbooks K_BOEohXedgC:
      Formally, capitalism performs its fundamental gesture—reappropriation without transformation. This bears on the question of subjective agency because this “reappropriation without transformation” is exactly what agency seeks to avoid; such a process indicates, in fact, that one's agency has failed, that one really had no agency in the first place.
    • 2012, Edmund V. Sullivan, A Critical Psychology, Springer Science & Business Media (ISBN 9781461326731), page gbooks p5JyBgAAQBAJ:
      Strictly speaking, at the level of personal agency one could say that power is a condition where one is “enabled.” I would contend that this is a condition of personal agency.
    • 2013, Andy Clark, Julian Kiverstein, Tillmann Vierkant, Decomposing the Will, Oxford University Press (ISBN 9780199876877), page gbooks zu9oAgAAQBAJ:
      The feeling of being in control of one's body should involve the sense of body-ownership, plus an additional sense of agency.
  3. A medium through which power is exerted or an end is achieved.
    Synonyms: instrumentality, means
  4. The office or function of an agent; also, the relationship between a principal and that person's agent.
    authority of agency
  5. An establishment engaged in doing business for another; also, the place of business or the district of such an agency.
    Synonyms: management
    hypo en
    • 2012, Simon Toms, The Impact of the UK Temporary Employment Industry in Assisting Agency Workers since the Year 2000, Cambridge Scholars Publishing (ISBN 9781443838146), page 277:
      As an employment agency you have a responsibility to supply work to the individual agency worker, as well as a service to the client.
  6. A department or other administrative unit of a government; also, the office or headquarters of, or the district administered by such unit of government.
    hypo en
    Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
    Central Intelligence Agency
Related terms Translations
  • French: capacité d'agir
  • German: Wille
  • Russian: де́йствие
  • Spanish: albedrío
Translations
  • French: agentivité (philosophy)
  • German: Agency (philosophy), Handlungsfähigkeit (philosophy)
  • Spanish: agency (philosophy), agencia (philosophy)
Translations Translations Translations


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