Subjective Agency

Also known as “conscious agency”. The dynamic action and reaction of human subjective consciousness and practical activity upon the objective world. Subjective agency is unique to mankind and is a characteristic that distinguishes man from animals. Human activity has ends, consciousness and self-awareness, which shows that man has an active and dynamic attitude towards the world around him. Subjective agency manifests itself in two aspects: knowing the objective world and reshaping of the objective world. The basis of the unity of these two aspects is social practice. As a reflection of the objective being, man’s knowledge is not merely passive and reactive; rather, on the basis of practice, it rises dynamically from sensuous knowledge to rational knowledge, thus the knowledge of a thing moves from surface phenomena to internal essence, and based on the knowledge of the essence and laws of things, it can anticipate the trend of development of a thing and put forth a vision or a programme for a new thing that has not existed in nature before. Through practice, men react upon the object of knowledge, change the objective object, and turn their vision or programme in the knowledge into reality.

Subjective agency and objective laws are dialectically unified. First, man must respect the objective laws. Giving play to man’s subjective agency necessarily presupposes acknowledging and respecting objective laws. Second, on the basis of respecting objective laws, it is necessary to give full play to man’s subjective agency and to know and exploit laws through his conscious activity. To give proper play to their subjective agency, men must know and grasp the laws from reality and change the world through practice. Giving play to subjective agency depends on certain material conditions and material means.