Philosophy of Action · Predictive Processing · Active Inference
Began 2021, renewed 2026
Two Accounts of Agency
A working paper translating Bratman's planning theory into the predictive processing framework.
Client
Ongoing · working paper
scope
Philosophy of Action · Predictive Processing · Active Inference
year
Began 2021, renewed 2026
duration
Ongoing
Overview
The question.
The predictive processing framework has reshaped how cognitive science understands the mind — not as a system that passively receives the world, but as one that actively predicts it. Separately, Michael Bratman's philosophy of planning agency has offered one of the most influential accounts of what it means to act with will, as a temporally extended self who plans, commits, and follows through. The two literatures have largely developed apart from one another.
The Challenge
Different languages for what may be a structurally analogous account of agency. |
Two literatures, developed apart, using different vocabularies for what looks like a remarkably similar picture of agency. My current work is a translation: taking Bratman's account of self-governing planning agency and Andy Clark's (2019) active inference model of agency, and showing — term by term — that the two are structurally and functionally analogous, closely enough that Bratman's account can be recast in predictive processing's vocabulary without losing what makes it distinctive. |
the solution
A term-by-term translation, laying the groundwork for what may come next. |
The project works through this translation directly: mapping Bratman's key theoretical constructs onto their predictive processing counterparts, and defending the claim that the fit is not superficial but structural. With that translation in place, I see a clear path toward further work — using the translation as a foundation for grounding Bratman's account in predictive processing's "mesoscale," and eventually testing its boundaries through the concept of aberrant precision, drawn from computational psychiatry. Those are the next stages I'm working toward, not yet argued here. This project is still under construction — an active, ongoing piece of research rather than a completed one. |
