Agency, activity, and biocybernetics: On The Evolution of Agency by Michael Tomasello

Abstract

In his new book, Michael Tomasello addresses agency, a topic that has recently become a focus of interest for philosophers (see Bayne, 2013) and neuroscientists (e.g., Grünbaum & Christensen, 2020; Haggard, 2017) and that has always been a key topic for activity theory in psychology (Leontiev, 1978). Agency refers to the capacity to perform intentional actions, or, more generally, goal-directed behavior. In the cultural historical activity theory (CHAT), the most recent discussions of agency go far beyond this basic definition, encompassing such phenomena as civic engagement, activism, and social change (Hopwood, 2022; Stetsenko, 2020). However, the definition of agency as “initiative and commitment to transform the context(s) of [. . .] activity” (Kajamaa & Kumpulainen, 2019, p. 201), as will be shown below, is in line with the general trend of the evolution of agency outlined by Tomasello. A renowned researcher of shared intentionality as a key feature of Homo sapiens and its evolution (e.g., Tomasello & Carpenter, 2007; Tomasello et al., 2005), Tomasello here turns to a more basic question of intentionality itself. He puts forward an ambitious goal to trace the evolution of agency which he considers the “first principle” of psychology, or “the organizational framework within which both behavioral and mental processes operate” (Tomasello, 2022, p. 134). Even more importantly, this principle incorporates both ecological and social factors, bridging biological and cultural evolution – an endeavor also intrinsic to activity theory (Engeström, 1987; Leontyev, 1981). Since the beginning of the 20th century, American psychology and CHAT have evolved separately, with a breakdown in communication between American and Soviet researchers. In the middle of that century, CHAT research surged mostly in the Soviet Union, behind the “iron curtain” (for a more detailed discussion, see Toulmin, 1978), and we still observe its consequences. It is somewhat surprising that Tomasello, who has obviously been aware of the quest for the origins and hallmarks of the human mind in the Vygotskian cultural historical approach and who even contributed to its substantiation (e.g., Moll & Tomasello, 2007), sets this framework aside in his new book. At the same time, it is tempting to compare some of his speculations and hypotheses to the evolutionary aspects of activity theory, which is rooted not only in Marxist philosophy but also in Russian evolutionary and comparative biology and neuroscience of the first half of the previous century. Tomasello’s book reads more like a detailed and somewhat repetitive essay elaborating on a couple of basic principles to explain agency, namely: feedback (or multiple comparisons between a goal state and a current state) and levels (“tiers”) of the regulation of behavior, or its hierarchical structure. Still fighting the ghost of behaviorism and its linear stimulus-response paradigm, with its over a centurylong dominance in American psychology, Tomasello emphasizes the importance of agency in behavioral flexibility under uncertainty, produced by the environment and first of all by other agents, as an evolutionarily beneficial property of behavior. For discussion of the main steps in the development of agency through evolution, Tomasello selects four “model objects,” partly representing extinct species which are unavailable for immediate investigation: lizards as an example of early agency subserving foraging behavior, squirrels, primates, and humans. Each species embodies the rise of a new form of agentive organization, which Tomasello labels as goal-directed agency, intentional agency, rational