Focus on agency

Actions play a central role in philosophy. The theory of action bundles investigations into metaphysics and the philosophy of science regarding our active abilities to intervene in the course of nature. In addition, it also deals with questions that are fundamental for moral philosophy, since it is, after all, actions that we evaluate morally. At the same time, the concept of action is also increasingly recognized as a challenge for the natural sciences, for example in efforts to find an appropriate interpretation of quantum mechanics. Scientific research is based on human action, and the formalism of quantum mechanics can be understood as a formalization of our active interaction with the world. At present, moreover, technical developments are taking place that will lead to artifacts (for example, autonomous vehicles) to which we are likely to ascribe a non-trivial capacity for action. This makes it all the more important to understand precisely the concepts of action and agency in their many facets and in their conceptual implications.

The Focus on agency at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Konstanz originates from a collaboration between the Innsbruck physicist Prof. Dr. Hans Briegel and the Konstanz philosopher Prof. Dr. Thomas Müller. Current work deals with the action model of "Projective Simulation", the "QBism" interpretation of quantum mechanics, and the metaphysics of time and temporal, real possibilities.