In the second instalment of the Of Rats and Men triptych, the foundations of agency are reconstructed as a positive follow-up to the previous paper’s conclusions. For this task, the article draws on pragmatic insights and interpretations of fundamental physical principles – derived from unorthodox contemporary theoretical approaches such as process metaphysics, the extended evolutionary synthesis, and frameworks associated with ‘the pragmatic turn’ in the cognitive sciences – namely the free-energy principle (FEP) and its operationalisation in predictive processing theory (PP). The aim is to defend the thesis that agency, understood as a capacity to act for reasons, is not a hallmark of human metaphysical exceptionalism but rather an inherent property of life itself, anchored in the organism’s internally generated existential imperative to maintain temporal homeodynamics against the entropic tendency towards dispersal. The author defends the use of intentional terminology in explaining animal behaviour, arguing that FEP and PP enable such an approach. This perspective is also consistent with the pluralistic stance of pragmatism and the anti-reductionist direction of processual metaphysics in the philosophy of biology. The article lays the groundwork for further analysis of advanced forms of agency, which will be explored in the final part of the triptych.
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