ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some of the central themes of Barry Barnes's recent book, Understanding Agency: Social Theory and Responsible Action. Understanding Agency is perhaps to date Barnes's most ambitious and important work: it outlines a new field of sociological inquiry, the sociology of free will; it suggests a fascinating functionalist account of the language games in which we invoke free will, responsibility and agency; it reflects on the effect of the new biotechnologies on our self-image; and it provides a devastating critique of the social theories of Roy Bhaskar, Antony Giddens, and Jrgen Habermas. Barnes follows other writers in social theory by using a plethora of terms and distinctions in order to capture the main options regarding the freedom of the will. He distinguishes compatibilism' from incompatibilist forms of voluntarism', and dualism' and exceptionalism' from monism' and naturalism'. One of the many impressive features of Barnes's oeuvre is the case with which he assimilates and uses scholarship of other disciplines.
