Agency from a phenomenological perspective: Action, intentionality, ownership and responsibility

This dissertation aims to explore the role of intentionality in action by examining different cases in which the agent is and is not responsible for the action, and by referring to contrasting views on it in the literature. More precisely, this dissertation explores the questions of the role of intentionality in action, the types of action and their relation to intentionality, and the cases in which the agent can be held responsible for his\her actions, by utilizing the notions of "attribution of subjectivity (ownership)", "attribution of agency", "sense of ownership" and "sense of agency". The dissertation is divided into three sections. In the first section, Husserl's phenomenological method and the concepts of intentionality and action in Husserl's thought is studied. In the second section, the role of the agent is discussed in the context of the concepts of ownership, the Other and responsibility in a transition from Husserlian to Sartrean thought. In the last section, the distinction between self and other as an experience that is distinct from other objects from the perspective of Merleau-Ponty and the concept of being-in-the-world are discussed. In conclusion, the questions relevant to action, intentionality, ownership and responsibility are scrutinized in terms of the phenomenological method as the crucial concepts are explained and the relations between these concepts are analyzed. Keywords: Agency; Action; Intentionality; Ownership; Responsibility; Sense; Mind; Consciousness.