Abstract:
This paper introduces the General Occupation Theory (GOT), a novel meta-theoretical framework designed to resolve a foundational ontological impasse within occupational science. Traditional models, while seminal, are predicated on the implicit assumption that the primary agent of occupation is a single, discrete human being. This limitation constrains the field’s capacity to model occupations that are fundamentally systemic, dyadic, or symbiotic. GOT addresses this by proposing two core axioms. First, the Principle of the Abstract Agent redefines the occupational agent not by its biological substrate but by its function as a self-organizing, autopoietic system that maintains its integrity through a process of active inference. This definition rigorously extends the concept of agency to non-individual entities. Second, the Principle of Multi-Dimensionality posits that the state of any such agent can be fully described as a vector within an eleven-dimensional state space, reframing occupation as a dynamic trajectory rather than a static category. The eleven dimensions, synthesized from a comprehensive review of emerging theories, are: The Semiotic System, Autopoietic Agency, Archetypal Congruence, Motivational Drive, Socio-Cultural Self-Construal, Neuro-Dynamic State, Predictive Processing, Embodied Social Structure, Volitional Dynamics, Emergent System Properties, and Relational System Integration. By providing a unified, mathematically-informed, and generative grammar for describing occupation, GOT offers a new foundation for interdisciplinary collaboration and a more general, powerful, and universally applicable science of occupation.
Yıldırım, E. (2025). The General Occupation Theory: An Eleven-Dimensional Framework for Non-Individual Agents. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17058105
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