Working Definition of Agency

Acting as Oneself: The Meaning of Agency
At every level of life—from the simplest cell to the human being—agency is what turns existence into participation. It is the spark by which life reaches beyond itself, sensing, adjusting, and responding to the world in ways that preserve its own coherence. In an age when so much of our behavior is automated or externally shaped, rediscovering the meaning of agency reminds us that to live well is not merely to survive but to direct the terms of one’s own survival. This essay offers a working definition of agency as the outward expression of autonomy—the active projection of life’s inner order into purposeful engagement with the world.

Agency is the outward manifestation of autonomy—the projection of life’s self-organizing coherence into purposive engagement with the world.[1] While autonomy refers to the inward capacity of a living system to sustain and regulate its own organization, agency expresses the outward capacity to initiate and guide activity according to that organization’s intrinsic aims. Autonomy is the power to remain oneself; agency is the power to act as oneself. The two are inseparable: autonomy without agency becomes inert self-containment, while agency without autonomy collapses into heteronomy—a loss of self-direction to external control.

Life in Motion: The Feedback of Perception and Action
At its most general level, agency can be defined as the capacity of a living system to initiate, regulate, and sustain its exchanges with its environment in ways that preserve or enhance its own viability.[2] It is not mere motion or reaction but organized activity—behavior generated from within the system’s own structure and oriented toward maintaining its coherence. Even the simplest organisms display this property. They detect and pursue what is beneficial, withdraw from what is harmful, and adjust their internal states in response to changing conditions.[3] In doing so, they enact and realize the minimal form of normativity—action that succeeds or fails relative to what sustains life. Agency therefore begins as a biological evaluation of significance, the earliest discernment of what matters for survival.

This capacity depends on a continuous loop of feedback between perception and action. Organisms do not act blindly upon the world but monitor the consequences of their behavior, refining responses through recursive loops of sensing, evaluating, and adjusting.[4] Through such feedback coupling, agency embodies a reciprocal dynamic rather than a one-way exertion of force: the organism’s internal organization both guides and is reshaped by its engagement with the environment. Perception and action thus form a single regulatory circuit oriented toward coherence.

The Defensive Origin of Action
Seen from this perspective, agency is the earliest emergence of normativity in nature. To act as an agent is to act in accordance with an internally generated evaluation of significance value—the distinction between conditions that support existence and those that threaten it.[5] This evaluative structure remains implicit in all living activity, becoming explicit only with the development of reflective cognition. In this sense, self-defense represents the primordial expression of agency itself: the active maintenance of integrity against dissolution. Every later mode of purposive action—from adaptive adjustment to deliberate choice—rests upon this defensive foundation.[6]

From Biology to Reflection: The Human Expansion of Agency
As biological complexity increases, so too does the dimensional depth of agency. Neural integration, memory, anticipation, and learning progressively extend the temporal horizon of possible action from immediate reaction to future-oriented regulation. In human beings, these same structural principles are intensified and elaborated through consciousness, language, and social participation, transforming adaptive control into reflective self-governance and moral foresight.[7] Yet across all scales, the essence remains constant: agency is autonomy enacted—the living system asserting and renewing its organization through purposeful and relational engagement with the world.

Conclusion: The Living Signature of Coherence
Agency is more than a philosophical abstraction; it is the living signature of coherence. From the reflex of a single-celled organism to the reflective choices of a moral being, every act of self-directed engagement reaffirms life’s most fundamental pattern: to maintain and renew order amid change. To act as an agent is to enact one’s own organization—to participate in the continual dialogue between inner stability and outer transformation. In this light, agency is not merely a capacity we possess but a condition we practice—the art of staying alive by acting in ways that sustain who we are.

 

 

About The Author

Nathan A. Wright
Nathan is the Managing Director and Chief Instructor at Northern Sage Kung Fu Academy, and Chief Representative of Luo Guang Yu Seven Star Praying Mantis in Canada and China. With over 25 years of experience living in China, he is deeply committed to passing on traditional martial arts in its most sincere form. As part of his passion Nathan regularly writes on related topics of self-defense, combat, health, philosophy, ethics, personal cultivation, and leadership. Email Nathan if you have questions on this article, or if you have interest in learning more about studying traditional Seven Star Praying Mantis Kung Fu.

 

 

End Notes
[1] Di Paolo, E., T. Buhrmann, and X. E. Barandiaran. 2017. “Sensorimotor Life: An Enactive Proposal.” Adaptive Behavior 25 (3): 151–164.
[2] Friston, K., T. Parr, and B. de Vries. 2017. “The Graphical Brain: Active Inference and Markov Blankets.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 21 (10): 875–888.
[3] Baluška, F., and M. Levin. 2016. “On the Agency of Cells: Information Processing, Decision-Making, and Self-Other Discrimination.” BioEssays 38 (10): 1003–1012.
[4] Clark, A. 2013. “Whatever Next? Predictive Brains, Situated Agents, and the Future of Cognitive Science.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 36 (3): 181–204.
[5] Bruineberg, J., J. Kiverstein, and E. Rietveld. 2018. “The Anticipating Brain: Towards a New Framing of Active Inference.” Synthese 199 (3–4): 1–28.
[6] McEwen, B. S., and P. J. Gianaros. 2018. “Central Role of the Brain in Stress and Adaptation: Allostasis, Homeostasis, and Resilience.” Physiology 33 (3): 185–197.
[7] Heyes, C. M. 2018. “Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 373 (1756): 20170051.