Agency as a functional kind

This article seeks to define the genuine (functional) kind of agency by identifying its essential property. In the context of this article, the essential property, also termed super‐explanatory, is the ability of an agent to make counterfactual models of outcomes of its actions. This article adopts a naturalist approach, informed by advancements in computational neuroscience, to define the functional kind of agency. The offered definition is deliberately flexible and inclusive, encompassing manifestations of agency in both natural and artificial domains.