Worldly Acts and Sentient Things : The Persistence of Agency From Stein to DeLillo

Ants, ghosts, cultures, thunderstorms, stock markets, robots, computers: this is just a partial list of the sentient things that have filled American literature over the last century. From modernism forward, writers have given life and voice to both the human and the nonhuman, and in the process addressed the motives, behaviors, and historical pressures that define lives--or things--both everyday and extraordinary. In Worldly Acts and Sentient Things Robert Chodat exposes a major shortcoming in recent accounts of twentieth-century discourse. What is often seen as the death of agency is better described as the displacement of agency onto new and varied entities. Writers as diverse as Gertrude Stein, Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison, and Don DeLillo are preoccupied with a cluster of related questions. Which entities are capable of believing something, saying something, desiring, hoping, hating, or doing? Which things, in turn, do we treat as worthy of our care, respect, and worship? Drawing on a philosophical tradition exemplified by Ludwig Wittgenstein and Wilfrid Sellars, Chodat shows that the death of the Cartesian ego need not entail the elimination of purposeful action altogether. Agents do not dissolve or die away in modern thought and literature; they proliferate--some in human forms, some not. Chodat distinguishes two ideas of agency in particular. One locates purposes in embodied beings, persons, the other in disembodied entities, presences. Worldly Acts and Sentient Things is a an engaging blend of philosophy and literary theory for anyone interested in modern and contemporary literature, narrative studies, psychology, ethics, and cognitive science. --Garry L. Hagberg, author of Meaning and Interpretation and Art as Language and editor of the journal Philosophy and Literature "Choice"

Ants, ghosts, cultures, thunderstorms, stock markets, robots, computers: this is just a partial list of the sentient things that have filled American literature over the last century. From modernism forward, writers have given life and voice to both the human and the nonhuman, and in the process addressed the motives, behaviors, and historical pressures that define lives-or things-both everyday and extraordinary.

In Worldly Acts and Sentient Things, Robert Chodat exposes a major shortcoming in recent accounts of twentieth-century discourse. What is often seen as the "death" of agency is better described as the displacement of agency onto new and varied entities. Writers as diverse as Gertrude Stein, Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison, and Don DeLillo are preoccupied with a cluster of related questions. Which entities are capable of believing something, saying something, desiring, hoping, hating, or doing? Which things, in turn, do we treat as worthy of our care, respect, and worship?

Drawing on a philosophical tradition exemplified by Ludwig Wittgenstein and Wilfrid Sellars, Chodat shows that the death of the Cartesian ego need not entail the elimination of purposeful action altogether. Agents do not dissolve or die away in modern thought and literature; they proliferate-some in human forms, some not. Chodat distinguishes two ideas of agency in particular. One locates purposes in embodied beings, "persons," the other in disembodied entities, "presences." Worldly Acts and Sentient Things is a an engaging blend of philosophy and literary theory for anyone interested in modern and contemporary literature, narrative studies, psychology, ethics, and cognitive science.

Ants, ghosts, cultures, thunderstorms, stock markets, robots, computers: this is just a partial list of the sentient things that have filled American literature over the last century. From modernism forward, writers have given life and voice to both the human and the nonhuman, and in the process addressed the motives, behaviors, and historical pressures that define lives--or things--both everyday and extraordinary.__In Worldly Acts and Sentient Things__Drawing on a philosophical tradition exemplified by Ludwig Wittgenstein and Wilfrid Sellars, Chodat shows that the death of the Cartesian ego need not entail the elimination of purposeful action altogether. Agents do not dissolve or die away in modern thought and literature; they proliferate--some in human forms, some not. Chodat distinguishes two ideas of agency in particular. One locates purposes in embodied beings, persons, the other in disembodied entities, presences.is a an engaging blend of philosophy and literary theory for anyone interested in modern and contemporary literature, narrative studies, psychology, ethics, and cognitive science.--Garry L. Hagberg, author ofand editor of the journal"Choice" Contents......Page 5 Acknowledgments......Page 7 Abbreviations......Page 11 Introduction French Cathedrals and Other Forms of Life......Page 15 Part I Agents Within......Page 37 Chapter 1 Sense, Science, and Slight Contacts with Other People’s Minds......Page 39 Chapter 2 Embodiment and the Inside......Page 70 Chapter 3 The Prose of Persons......Page 103 Part II Agents Without......Page 135 Chapter 4 Selves, Sentences, and the Styles of Holism......Page 137 Chapter 5 Embodiment and the Outside......Page 170 Chapter 6 The Culture and Its Loaded Words......Page 210 Conclusion Person and Presence, Stories and Theories......Page 247 Index......Page 261 "In Worldly Acts and Sentient Things Robert Chodat exposes a major shortcoming in recent accounts of twentieth-century discourse. What is often seen as the "death" of agency is better described as the displacement of agency onto new and varied entities." "Worldly Acts and Sentient Things is an engaging blend of philosophy and literary theory for anyone interested in modern and contemporary literature, narrative studies, psychology, ethics, and cognitive science."--Jacket Chodat exposes a major shortcoming in recent accounts of twentieth-century discourse, arguing that what is often seen as the "death" of agency is better described as the displacement of agency onto new and varied entities.