- character, agency, act -

Agency is the capacity of a person or other entity to act in a world. In philosophy, the agency is considered as belonging to that agent even if that agent represents a fictitious character, or some other non-existent entity.

In certain philosophical traditions (particularly those established by Hegel and Marx), human agency is a collective, historical dynamic, rather than a function arising out of individual behavior. Hegel's Geist and Marx's universal class are idealist and materialist expressions of this idea of humans treated as social beings, organized to act in concert.

Hannah Arendt claims that it is the act of disclosure itself, the willingness to take the risk, rather than the quality of the act that actually constitutes greatness. Arendt does not think of disclosure as expression or as unmasking. Nor is disclosing exactly the same as giving information. Arendt's concern is with speech, not as the product of a set of practices or conditions, but as the act of an agent.