The Structures of Temporally Extended Agents

Abstract

: This chapter offers an overview of the ways agents might extend over time and the characteristic structure of extended human agency. Agency can extend in two distinct but combinable modes: the ontological, which gives rise to simple continuous agents, and the conceptual, which gives rise to agents who conceive of and care about distal times, and have minimal planning abilities. Our extended form of agency combines both. But we are still limited by the temporal locality in the operation of our psychological and executive powers. To account for this locality, I introduce the notion of “temporal selves”, as the loci of immediacy in the agent’s determination of their psychology, conduct, and practical standpoint. I argue that the passage of time generates, by itself, the threat of temporal alienation from distant temporal selves. A genuinely extended agency requires temporal identification: the sharing, by separate temporal selves, of a temporally extended and integrated practical standpoint. This temporal identification cannot be produced simply by temporal identity as continuity. What is required is temporal identity in the mode of unity and integration. This identity does not precede temporal identification but is co-constituted with it. I offer a preliminary account of the structure of the units of integration for agents who aspire to persist in the mode of unity and integration. I close with a cautionary note: the complex structure of integration, although familiar in everyday life, is often missed by standard philosophical accounts, which tend to focus on simple models of extended agency.