{"id":805,"date":"2026-02-20T17:13:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T22:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/?page_id=805"},"modified":"2026-02-20T17:13:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T22:13:21","slug":"distorting-agency-a-phenomenological-critique-of-active-inference-accounts-of-action-in-flow","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/?page_id=805","title":{"rendered":"Distorting Agency: A Phenomenological Critique of Active Inference Accounts of Action in Flow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In this paper, I use phenomenology to show how recent Active Inference accounts of the flow state fail to individuate the intentional and temporal structures that constitute skilled agency in flow. I then argue that their failure in this regard is indicative of more general issues with the fundamental assumptions Predictive Processing accounts have concerning the structural principles that individuate cognitive agents. Drawing on recent Enactivist critiques of Active Inference, I show how Husserlian and Merleau-Pontyian phenomenology of flow as a state of complete absorption in skilled action can bolster such critiques, while complementing and extending their search for the historical and worldly sources of our sense of autonomous agency in skilled action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-black-color has-text-color has-background has-link-color wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/?page_id=780#paper_abstracts\" style=\"background-color:#e9dfd4c7\"><strong>back to Research<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this paper, I use phenomenology to show how recent Active Inference accounts of the flow state fail to individuate the intentional and temporal structures that constitute skilled agency in flow. I then argue that their failure in this regard is indicative of more general issues with the fundamental assumptions Predictive Processing accounts have concerning&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-805","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":806,"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/805\/revisions\/806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}