The concept of agency is of crucial importance in cognitive science and artificial intelligence, and it is often used as an intuitive and rather uncontroversial term, in contrast to more abstract and theoretically heavily weighted terms such as intentionality, rationality, or mind. However, most of the available definitions of agency are too loose or unspecific to allow for a progressive scientific research program. They implicitly and unproblematically assume the features that characterize agents, thus obscuring the full potential and challenge of modeling agency. We identify three conditions that a system must meet in order to be considered as a genuine agent: (a) a system must define its own individuality, (b) it must be the active source of activity in its environment (interactional asymmetry), and (c) it must regulate this activity in relation to certain norms (normativity). We find that even minimal forms of proto-cellular systems can already provide a paradigmatic example of genuine agency. By abstracting away some specific details of minimal models of living agency we define the kind of organization that is capable of meeting the required conditions for agency (which is not restricted to living organisms). On this basis, we define agency as an autonomous organization that adaptively regulates its coupling with its environment and contributes to sustaining itself as a consequence. We find that spatiality and temporality are the two fundamental domains in which agency spans at different scales. We conclude by giving an outlook for the road that lies ahead in the pursuit of understanding, modeling, and synthesizing agents.

Key words: agency, individuality, interactional asymmetry, normativity, spatiality, temporality

The concept of agency is of crucial importance in cognitive science and artificial intelligence, and it is often used as an intuitive and rather uncontroversial term, in contrast to more abstract and theoretically heavy-weighted terms like “intentionality”, “rationality” or “mind”. However, most of the available definitions of agency are either too loose or unspecific to allow for a progressive scientific program. They implicitly and unproblematically assume the features that characterize agents, thus obscuring the full potential and challenge of modeling agency. We identify three conditions that a system must meet in order to be considered as a genuine agent: a) a system must define its own individuality, b) it must be the active source of activity in its environment (interactional asymmetry) and c) it must regulate this activity in relation to certain norms (normativity). We find that even minimal forms of proto-cellular systems can already provide a paradigmatic example of genuine agency. By abstracting away some specific details of minimal models of living agency we define the kind of organization that is capable to meet the required conditions for agency (which is not restricted to living organisms). On this basis, we define agency as an autonomous organization that adaptively regulates its coupling with its environment and contributes to sustaining itself as a consequence. We find that spatiality and temporality are the two fundamental domains in which agency spans at different scales. We conclude by giving an outlook to the road that lies ahead in the pursuit to understand, model and synthesize agents.

The aim of this article is to set up a reciprocal relationship between a scientific study of perception, and phenomenology as a philosophical method. The domain chosen for this exercise is the constitution of spatiality, and in particular spatial depth. After recalling the question of depth as it is presented in The phenomenology of perception by Merleau-Ponty, we present an original experimental study based on a sensory substitution device. This study, which is based on an approach to perception as the extraction of sensory-motor loops, is carried out following two successive points of view: an objective, “third person” perspective, and a “first person” perspective involving a phenomenological analysis of the experience of the subject. The concluding discussion, based on the original phenomenological status of tools, proposes the existence of an “asymmetrical reciprocal envelopment” between that which is constitutive and that which is constituted. This makes it possible to determine the objective “correlates” of the elements of the phenomenological description of the constitution of the experience of depth.

Key words: depth perception, phenomenology, experimental study, third person perspective, first person perspective, tools, constitution.

Law and Environment enter a connection of disrupted continuum. The recent ‘turns’ in law towards materiality, spatiality, corporeality, disconnect the usual distance between law and its environment and enhance the visibility of materiality continuum between the two. Law is no longer abstract but spatially emplaced, corporeally felt, materially present. The environment, be it in the form of human/non-human bodies, technology, weather phenomena, and the wider, open ecology of material presence, destabilises the system, rendering it more precarious and more distant from its usual self-description. Building on Luhmann’s theory of autopoiesis, I present my reading of what I call Critical Autopoiesis, namely the autopoietics of materiality, spatiality and corporeality as they emerge from contemporary legal theory. I am employing Deleuze and Guattari in connection to Luhmann in order to multiply and indeed fractally explode the Luhmannian boundaries between law and its environment.

Key words: critical autopoiesis, space, body, law, environment, materiality, deleuze, luhmann.