>> How do you and Miles explain the emergence of a "soul," i.e. not
>> merely
>> self-determination and final causation but forms of these consistent
>> with the development of a "will proper" and a "universal will," from
>> the aggregation of material interpreted in terms of conventional
>> "materialism" as "vacuous bits of matter with no internal values, and
>> merely hurrying through space" i.e. in terms of an ontology that by
>> assumption explicitly excludes any role for self-determination and
>> final causation? In any event, "materialism" of this kind and
>> "structuralism" explicitly deny we are "subjects" - "agents" - in this
>> sense, don't they?
>
> Huh? The soul's not a necessary component of any theory of the
> subject.
> I'm not really interested in theology, so I don't say much about the
> soul.
"Soul," in this context, is a reference to a set of ideas originating with Plato that provide the basis for a conception of human being radically different from the one you're treating as self-evident.
In particular these ideas attribute to human being forms of self-determination and final causation consistent with the development of a "will proper" and a "universal will."
These are Hegel's terms for the human potential he takes as defining the human "essence." His philosophy of history treats human history as a process through this this potential - the human "in itself" - becomes actual - "for itself."
"The Will Proper, or the Higher Appetite, is (a) pure indeterminateness of the Ego, which as such has no limitation or a content which is immediately extant through nature but is indifferent towards any and every determinateness. (b) The Ego can, at the same time, pass over to a determinateness and make a choice of some one or other and then actualize
it." (Hegel, The Philosophical Propaedeutic p. 2)
The "Universal Will" is "the Will which is Lawful and Just or in accordance with Reason." (Philosophical Propaedeutic p. 1)
These are also essential features of Marx's conception of human "subjects." They define what is meant by "freedom" in the idea of the "realm of freedom." A fully "free" life is a life filled with "good" activities i.e. with activities that are "in accordance with Reason." One of these is appropriating and creating beauty within relations of mutual recognition - as in Marx's use of musical composition to illustrate "fully free working." This appropriates Kant's idea of "art" as "praxis" in Aristotle's sense.
"By right we ought only to describe as art, production through freedom, i.e. through a will that places reason at the basis of its actions." Critique of Judgment, p. 145
"Art" is this sense is an end in itself - "play."
"We regard the first ['production through freedom'] as if it could only prove purposive as play, i.e. asoccupation which is pleasant in itself. But the second ['handicraft'] is regarded as if it could only be compulsorily imposed upon one as work, i.e. as occupation which is unpleasant (a trouble) in itself and which is only attractive on account of its effect (e.g. the wage)." Critique of Judgment, p. 146
Hegel and Marx treat Shakespeare as exemplifying a human subject who comes close to actualizing "production through freedom" in this sense.
The ontology implicit in your idea of "agency" has no logical space for these ideas. Before considering which set of ideas best describes the reality of human being, you first need to see that they are in fact radically different sets of ideas - radically different ontologies. One has room for the idea of a "subject" characterized by self-determination and final causation in the forms I've just specified; the other, the one implicit in what you're claiming, doesn't.
Ted