ABSTRACT
**At the core of the concept of agency is the idea that agents perform actions, where actions are behaviours done for a purpose or a reason; actions are goal-directed behaviours. This means that there is a natural connection between the concept of agency and teleological explanation, since teleological explanations work by citing the state of affairs towards which a behaviour was directed, having the form, ‘A did B in order to C.’ However, the connection to teleology threatens to make the phenomenon of agency seem rather puzzling. We do not use teleological explanations when explaining motions of rocks, planets, or elementary particles. If teleological explanations apply in the realm of human agency but not to other natural events in the world, this suggests that people and their actions stand mysteriously outside the natural order. On the other hand, if teleological explanations reduce to something within the normal sphere of naturalistic science, the problem would dissolve: acting for a reason would be no more mysterious than other phenomena of nature. Two strategies for reduction suggest themselves. According to the first, teleological explanations are just straightforward causal explanations in disguise. On the second, teleological explanations are a form of the functional or selectional explanation that we see in biology. This entry examines these strategies, concluding that both face substantial obstacles.
