Chapter 15: Boundaries, Issues, Agents and Boundary Critique

Our interest here lies in plural agent epistemology and ontology. Agent epistemology concerns the knowledge content of issues that need to be resolved interactively by a plurality of agents. Epistemological boundaries enable frames of reference to be created that enable agents, who wish to seek improvements to problematic issues, to create issue boundaries from which can follow local (agent) judgments. Where the judgments are incommensurable because of the plurality of the issue boundaries, disagreements or conflicts can arise. This can often develop into a process of agent marginalization that in the end can be indicative of power differential. Agent ontology can be expressed in terms of the nature of the reality that differentiates interactive agents, and can be expressed as agent boundaries. Agent boundaries are important because, when change is recognized, the view that agents take on issue boundaries often changes.