Mercedes Valmisa is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Gettysburg College. Her work focuses on philosophy of action and social philosophy. In her writing, she is interested in expanding the ways we think about agency through multicultural and interdisciplinary lenses. She is the author of Adapting: A Chinese Philosophy of Action (OUP, 2021).

• Introduction: A Preliminary Approach to the Collective Character of All Actions Chapter 1: Philosophy of Action and Agency: A Shift in Perspective Chapter 2: Things Chapter 3: Powers Chapter 4: Swarm Agency Chapter 5: The Power of the Assembly: A New Interpretation of Wuwei Epilogue: Non-Cruel Optimism Appendix 1: The Making of a Chinese Bronze Vessel Appendix 2: Music and the Power of Reorganization

It is weird how seldom we encounter in the present age of globalization, in any corner of the world, authors bold enough to venture beyond the confines of their own intellectual heritage and to present us with efforts to uncover philosophical territory that is common to humankind as a whole. But Mercedes Valmisa is such a thinker. She moves with ease between the thought traditions of Asia and the West, classical antiquities, modern times and our present age, and harnesses the conceptual constructions from each of these periods and regions to support her philosophical vision, which is offering to us a novel, more comprehensive and broad-sighted picture of the world and ourselves in it.

Mercedes Valmisa is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Gettysburg College. Her work focuses on philosophy of action and social philosophy. In her writing, she is interested in expanding the ways we think about agency through multicultural and interdisciplinary lenses. She is the author of Adapting: A Chinese Philosophy of Action (OUP, 2021).

• Introduction: A Preliminary Approach to the Collective Character of All Actions Chapter 1: Philosophy of Action and Agency: A Shift in Perspective Chapter 2: Things Chapter 3: Powers Chapter 4: Swarm Agency Chapter 5: The Power of the Assembly: A New Interpretation of Wuwei Epilogue: Non-Cruel Optimism Appendix 1: The Making of a Chinese Bronze Vessel Appendix 2: Music and the Power of Reorganization

It is weird how seldom we encounter in the present age of globalization, in any corner of the world, authors bold enough to venture beyond the confines of their own intellectual heritage and to present us with efforts to uncover philosophical territory that is common to humankind as a whole. But Mercedes Valmisa is such a thinker. She moves with ease between the thought traditions of Asia and the West, classical antiquities, modern times and our present age, and harnesses the conceptual constructions from each of these periods and regions to support her philosophical vision, which is offering to us a novel, more comprehensive and broad-sighted picture of the world and ourselves in it.

Mercedes Valmisa is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Gettysburg College. Her work focuses on philosophy of action and social philosophy. In her writing, she is interested in expanding the ways we think about agency through multicultural and interdisciplinary lenses. She is the author of Adapting: A Chinese Philosophy of Action (OUP, 2021).

• Introduction: A Preliminary Approach to the Collective Character of All Actions Chapter 1: Philosophy of Action and Agency: A Shift in Perspective Chapter 2: Things Chapter 3: Powers Chapter 4: Swarm Agency Chapter 5: The Power of the Assembly: A New Interpretation of Wuwei Epilogue: Non-Cruel Optimism Appendix 1: The Making of a Chinese Bronze Vessel Appendix 2: Music and the Power of Reorganization

It is weird how seldom we encounter in the present age of globalization, in any corner of the world, authors bold enough to venture beyond the confines of their own intellectual heritage and to present us with efforts to uncover philosophical territory that is common to humankind as a whole. But Mercedes Valmisa is such a thinker. She moves with ease between the thought traditions of Asia and the West, classical antiquities, modern times and our present age, and harnesses the conceptual constructions from each of these periods and regions to support her philosophical vision, which is offering to us a novel, more comprehensive and broad-sighted picture of the world and ourselves in it.