Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here for FREE ACCESS to this landmark database

Click here to sign up for SAGE Journal Email Alerts today!

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Theory & Psychology
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Ansoff, R.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Notes

How Can there be Personal Agency without an Ontology of the Individual?

Rick Ansoff

Georgetown University, ansoffr{at}medlib.georgetown.edu

In her assessment of Ansoff (1993), Kenwood (1996) argues that there is room for personal volition and agency in social constructionism. This assertion is examined in light of the social constructionist doctrine of ontological mutism enunciated by Gergen, according to which any ontological commitment is refused and `whatever is, simply is'. An ontology of the individual-as-agent is considered, and the consequences of ontological mutism are explored. It is argued that a clear commitment to the grounding assumptions of some settled ontology is a prerequisite for coherent considerations of agency or even volition, because without such a commitment it is impossible to decide what exists and if it moves.

Theory & Psychology, Vol. 6, No. 3, 539-544 (1996)
DOI: 10.1177/0959354396063011
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Theory PsychologyHome page
A. Stetsenko and I. M. Arievitch
The Self in Cultural-Historical Activity Theory: Reclaiming the Unity of Social and Individual Dimensions of Human Development
Theory Psychology, August 1, 2004; 14(4): 475 - 503.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 Theory PsychologyHome page
B. S. Held
What Follows?: Mind Dependence, Fallibility and Transcendence According to (Strong) Constructionism's Realist and Quasi-Realist Critics
Theory Psychology, October 1, 2002; 12(5): 651 - 669.
[Abstract] [PDF]