The meaning of autonomy

Autonomy Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster

au·ton·o·my ȯ-ˈtä-nə-mē

: the quality or state of being self-governing

especially : the right of self-government

The territory was granted autonomy.

: self-directing freedom and especially moral independence

personal autonomy

: a self-governing state

Synonyms

accord
choice
free will
self-determination
volition
will

See all Synonyms & Antonyms in Thesaurus

Example Sentences

The Catalans take the matter of their language very seriously; it is an outward indication of their autonomy, of their distinction from the rest of Spain. —Polly Evans, It's Not About the Tapas, 2006

The term empire implies more than simple cultural dominance or preeminent military power. It applies to states that use force to occupy and control a group of other states or regions. The conquered states, robbed of autonomy and political independence, become colonies, provinces, or territories of the imperial power. Taxes are levied, laws are imposed, soldiers are conscripted, governors are installed—all without the consent of the subjugated state. —Michael J. Glennon, Wilson Quarterly, Summer 2002

The social payoff of the new knowledge would be new technology, then new industries and new jobs. Compton got nowhere with the administration, partly because he was an anti-New Dealer, partly because the government was unwilling to grant scientists the autonomy that they claimed, and partly because his program represented a trickle-down approach to economic recovery. —Daniel J. Kevles, New Republic, 30 Sept. 2002

Usually, Americans think of freedom as a condition of personal autonomy, independence from the will of others. This way of thinking reflects just the kind of distinction—between oneself and the rest of the group of which one is a part—that Dewey considered false. —Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club, 2001

a teacher who encourages individual autonomy The territory has been granted autonomy. See More

Recent Examples on the Web Janet Malcolm’s parents in prewar PragueCOURTESY OF JANET MALCOLM Malcolm, away at college and fiercely jealous of her autonomy, was stingy with her letters home. —Sam Adler-bell, The New Republic, 20 Mar. 2023 Prigozhin, a wealthy catering tycoon and ex-convict, has emerged from the shadows into a high-profile public role since the war started, and appears to enjoy a large measure of autonomy on the ground. —Reuters, NBC News, 23 Feb. 2023 In 2019, Hong Kong saw widespread pro-democracy demonstrations protesting the erosion of the Chinese territory’s autonomy. —Molly Enking, Smithsonian Magazine, 21 Feb. 2023 His wider strategy, analysts said, was designed to appeal to Europe’s sense of autonomy. —David Pierson, New York Times, 21 Feb. 2023 Focus on control by setting specific daily, weekly, and monthly goals Getting laid off from your job is a stark reminder that hard work and good performance don’t guarantee job security—and that can challenge our sense of autonomy. —Aimee Pearcy, Quartz, 17 Feb. 2023 Workers who lacked a sense of autonomy at work were overreactive or withdrawn parents, and their children lacked social skills and had more behavior problems. —Elizabeth Chang, Washington Post, 16 Feb. 2023 While the robots will be teleoperated up to a point, DARPA is going to mess with the latency and bitrate of the teams' connection to the robots, with the goal of forcing teams to equip their robots with a great level of autonomy. —IEEE Spectrum, 15 Feb. 2023 Designed for lengthy, transoceanic expeditions, the 244-footer sports a rugged ice-class hull and offers a staggering 40 days of autonomy at sea. —Rachel Cormack, Robb Report, 14 Feb. 2023 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'autonomy.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

see autonomous

First Known Use

circa 1623, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler

The first known use of autonomy was circa 1623

See more words from the same year

Dictionary Entries Near

autonomy

autonomous underwater vehicle

autonomy

autonymous

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“Autonomy. ” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/autonomy. Accessed 5 Apr. 2023.

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Kids Definition

autonomy

noun

au·ton·o·my ȯ-ˈtän-ə-mē

: the power or right of self-government

Medical Definition

autonomy

noun

au·ton·o·my -mē

: the quality or state of being independent, free, and self-directing

: independence from the organism as a whole in the capacity of a part for growth, reactivity, or responsiveness

Legal Definition

autonomy

noun

au·ton·o·my ȯ-ˈtä-nə-mē

: the quality or state of being self-governing

especially : the right of self-government

autonomous

-məs

adjective

autonomously adverb

More from Merriam-Webster on

autonomy

Nglish: Translation of autonomy for Spanish Speakers

Britannica English: Translation of autonomy for Arabic Speakers

Last Updated: 25 Mar 2023 - Updated example sentences

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Merriam-Webster unabridged

Autonomy Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.

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Examples
British

This shows grade level based on the word's complexity.

[ aw-ton-uh-mee ]

/ ɔˈtɒn ə mi /

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See synonyms for autonomy on Thesaurus.com

This shows grade level based on the word's complexity.

noun, plural au·ton·o·mies.

independence or freedom, as of the will or one's actions: the autonomy of the individual.

the condition of being autonomous; self-government or the right of self-government: The rebels demanded autonomy from Spain.

a self-governing community.

QUIZ

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Origin of autonomy

1615–25; <Greek autonomía independence, equivalent to autónom(os) autonomous + -ia-y³

OTHER WORDS FROM autonomy

au·ton·o·mist, noun

Words nearby autonomy

autonomism, autonomous, autonomously, autonomous phoneme, autonomous syntax, autonomy, autonym, autooxidation, autopay, autopen, autophagia

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Words related to autonomy

freedom, self-determination, self-government, self-rule, sovereignty, liberty

How to use autonomy in a sentence

The group has come under criticism from skeptics wary that its origins with Facebook make real autonomy from the company impossible.
Facebook Oversight Board says other social networks ‘welcome to join’ if project succeeds|Taylor Hatmaker|February 11, 2021|TechCrunch
We described three main ethical issues — fairness, autonomy and privacy.
Can privacy coexist with technology that reads and changes brain activity?|Laura Sanders|February 11, 2021|Science News
Of three concerns — autonomy, fairness and privacy — privacy was the biggest worry among respondents.
Should corporations get access to our brains?|Nancy Shute|February 7, 2021|Science News
One of the most striking things about imaginary companions, which are generally considered harmless, is, of course, their apparent autonomy.
Can You Treat Loneliness By Creating an Imaginary Friend? - Facts So Romantic|Jim Davies|January 15, 2021|Nautilus

So really, it’s about giving people autonomy to do their jobs while giving them the support they need to make sure that they’re not operating from a place of fear.
Award-winning tips from the 2020 Search Engine Land SEM and SEO agencies of the year|Carolyn Lyden|January 14, 2021|Search Engine Land
Islamic State brought “peace, autonomy, zero corruption, low crime-rate,” he Tweeted last month.
The Scared Widdle Kitty of ISIS|Jacob Siegel|December 12, 2014|DAILY BEAST
“Gardens can provide kids with disabilities a greater level of autonomy,” said Fried.
Magical Gardens for the Blind, Deaf, and Disabled|Elizabeth Picciuto|October 22, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Liberal learning is said to prepare one for autonomy and for citizenship.
College Must Be More Than Just a Classy Trade School|Michael S. Roth|August 30, 2014|DAILY BEAST
But now that the company is giving her more autonomy, she pitches content as often as they pitch to her.
Inside StyleHaul, the Largest Fashion Network on YouTube You’ve Never Heard Of|Lizzie Crocker|August 24, 2014|DAILY BEAST
The point at which autonomy should be handed over to the child is less clear when parenting children with cognitive disabilities.
Is It Wrong for Parents to Lock Up Their Disabled Kids?|Elizabeth Picciuto|August 4, 2014|DAILY BEAST
The Jursans, it developed, would give up demands for autonomy and resume allegiance to the Empire.
The Envoy, Her|Horace Brown Fyfe
Moreover, the greater part of the Phnician towns enjoyed, under the Seleucid, a certain autonomy favourable to their industry.
History of Julius Caesar Vol. 1 of 2|Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, 1808-1873.
The victory of craft autonomy over the "one big union" was decisive and complete.
A History of Trade Unionism in the United States|Selig Perlman
It is not, however, open to much doubt that the Department was not a very successful custodian of the trade autonomy principle.
A History of Trade Unionism in the United States|Selig Perlman
In the same capacity they exercise a degree of local autonomy greater than that which is vested in the communes of France.
Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885|Various

British Dictionary definitions for autonomy

autonomy

/ (ɔːˈtɒnəmɪ) /

noun plural -mies

the right or state of self-government, esp when limited

a state, community, or individual possessing autonomy

freedom to determine one's own actions, behaviour, etc

philosophy

the doctrine that the individual human will is or ought to be governed only by its own principles and lawsSee also categorical imperative
the state in which one's actions are autonomous

Derived forms of autonomy

autonomist, noun

Word Origin for autonomy

C17: from Greek autonomia freedom to live by one's own laws; see autonomous

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Transcription of Polina Kolozaria's lecture on the autonomy of the researcher and the text

It is believed that research is the basic way of working with information. But this approach raises many questions. Can we really assert the superiority of the scientific approach over others? Why is working with a research text exceptional, and how is it different from others? Polina Colozaridi proposes to think about this, keeping in mind the figure of the researcher as an autonomous one, where such researchers exist and can exist, how their ethics and responsibility are arranged.

A series of seminars “Research&Write” started in the Shaninka library about what research and research text are, how we determine the quality of a text, whether we can apply the same requirements to different approaches, one of which is called science, and the second - area of study, and offer universal criteria for a good text? The series of meetings was opened by a lecture entitled “The Autonomy of the Researcher and the Text” by Polina Kolozaridi, Internet researcher, coordinator of the club of Internet and society lovers, lecturer at the Higher School of Economics and Shaninka.

WHO DOES RESEARCH?

Research is being done today by a huge number of people and organizations connected and not connected with the academic world: journalists, artists, consulting firms, educational and political structures, NGOs, businessmen. And also students, when they study and write term papers, because the basic way of interacting with knowledge at the university is research.

Different approaches to research have conflicts. For example, among sociologists in recent years, investigations by journalists who use sociological methods have made noise. Can we imagine, sociologists said, that someone takes our methods, uses and gets research that competes with sociological knowledge? Should we consider this knowledge as "ours" since it is made by these methods? The conflict here is understandable - there is a method, everyone can take it and use it, while the level of trust is related not only to which method is used, but also to whether the institution legitimizes the researcher's activity or not. It turns out that conflicts always escalate when someone comes from outside and claims that I am a researcher. But within the research community, there is a constant reassessment of what counts as research.

These questions become more painful when we get to the level of interacting with people who believe in research results. For example, the scandal with blogger Elena Kornilova, who stated that she had a degree in biochemistry, which means she could talk about medicine and self-care. As a result, it turned out that she did not have a diploma, and what she preached was unhealthy according to doctors, and on the border with legality.

In parallel, the idea is developing that we can all participate in the research life. But not in the same way as Elena Kornilova, but, for example, in the Telegram channel "Wet Mantu". The authors of the channel conduct an examination of various habits, analyze scientific publications and give advice based on them. But they are professionals, and at the same time they encourage people to share stories about their own health, conduct expertise and share knowledge. Patients themselves can join.
In the Russian tradition, this is not so accepted, but in the American tradition it is more developed - there are many publications about discoveries made by patient communities. Patient communities, medical communities, the media environment - these communities are sometimes tense with each other, because research that relates to medicine speaks about the health and physical well-being of people.

Ultimately, all these conflicts turn to the question - who is a researcher? A researcher is not a scientist, or not only a scientist. At the same time, this is a person who knows how to interact with knowledge in the way that is accepted in science. However, it may not be associated with scientific institutions.

Second. The researcher is not an expert. He is not an educator or a promoter. This figure is antagonistic to the popularizer. The researcher works with knowledge that does not yet exist, and the popularizer presents the knowledge that already exists.

THEN WHAT IS RESEARCH?

It's a way to interact with the world, right? And it is associated with purposeful knowledge and application of methods adopted in some circle of people. That is why I am talking about conflicts - because they are accepted by a certain circle of people. In doing so, I insist on the active role of the researcher. He does not know from somewhere above, he always interacts with the world. I would say that the researcher has such an interaction with the world in which knowledge about the world is produced, which, in turn, affects the world.

On the one hand, the researcher is a rather exclusive role. He is not a scientist, not an expert, he learns something, he is in the process. At the same time, the researcher is almost every person. This is an obvious painful paradox. We all have access to the components of the study. At the same time, I problematize the status of a researcher and say that it is not always and not for everyone. Why?
The first reason. We live in an amazing era when different types of knowledge compete with each other with an intensity that until recently seemed impossible. Of course, different types of knowledge have always competed and there were people who doubt science and offer alternative explanations for everything. But with the advent of social media, which allows anyone to record a video of their version of dinosaur extinction and post it on YouTube, and come up with a method by which this can be discovered, it turns out that such versions not only exist in some narrow group of people, but and can quickly spread to other groups. Due to the fact that access to media is expanding and growing, the number of theories and approaches potentially competing with the official scientific position is not decreasing, but increasing.

But on the other hand, the problem is not so much in the current situation associated with the emergence of new ways of transmitting knowledge, but in the fact that the very idea of science, based more or less on the ideas of the Enlightenment, is not perfect.

At the very beginning of The Dialectic of Enlightenment, Adorno and Horkheimer say that things become known to us to the extent that we can produce them, to which we need them. Everything else slips away from our focus of interest and becomes unnecessary and incomprehensible. Then it comes to science, but under a different sauce, sometimes under the guise of new knowledge, sometimes in the course of scientific revolutions.

So, not everything is going well with science. We can't just go back to a state where science defined how the world worked, was true, and had an accurate system of evidence. First, there is no such golden age to which we can return. Secondly, we thus fetishize science. We turn it into some form of true knowledge. We hang complex ethical constructions on it, which then interfere with us.

Next problem. Knowledge tools live in different worlds. We separately read the news, separately take courses on Coursera, separately learn to be conscious consumers. All this lives with us in different worlds and different media. On the one hand, we call everything research, on the other hand, we almost never put these pieces of research together.

A separate problem is that at the university they interact with information in a scientific way. But most graduates rarely do research. This is the paradox of the current state of the university. At the same time, universities and around them do not talk about a number of things related to research, which seem to me extremely important for the mythological figure of the researcher. Let's talk about the conflict of disciplines. There are conflicts within disciplines, there are conflicts between them. For example, between sociologists and psychologists. In an age of interdisciplinarity, it is important to remember this. A sociologist and a psychologist can argue and never reach a consensus. It is also very important to understand that not every person who has taken a course on Coursera now knows their topic thoroughly.

Or about a political position. We understand what political views the person who speaks from the pulpit holds. Thanks to Foucault, we know that ideology is often hardwired into language. The way a person talks about things can already give away some of his or her political position. The use of feminitives, what examples a person gives - all this allows us to assume what political views the speaker holds. And now I do not argue with Max Weber, who said that science and politics live in different worlds. But these worlds are connected, and our position is not always neutral.

In this context, the issue of ethics is important, often painful and difficult. I propose to recall the definition that I gave. Research is interaction with the world. The explorer is always acting in the world. There is a theory of dual hermeneutics introduced by Anthony Giddens. It shows that when we learn something, and then we produce this knowledge - we publish an article, which journalists then refer to, or we popularize our knowledge ourselves - the world will know about it, and the world will immediately change under the influence of this knowledge. At the same time, any knowledge that we throw into the world begins to influence the world and provoke a change in ourselves.
The ethical question allows us to talk about the responsibility of the researcher as a person who interacts with the world in such a way that before this interaction we do not know something, and then, having passed a clear and open path, we learn something about the world.

THERE IS A PROBLEM NOT ONLY WITH RESEARCH AND KNOWLEDGE AS SUCH, BUT ALSO WITH HOW RESEARCH TEXTS ARE STRUCTURED.

We can distinguish a good article from a bad one when we are already inside a discipline or topic. If you go into another, related discipline, then you do not understand anything. It turns out that we seem to be studying the world, but within the narrow confines of the discipline.

Disciplines force us to give definitions, to put limits on certain concepts, to create barriers and boundaries that we cannot go beyond. The article is largely a projection of the disciplines and institutional boundaries that exist within any approach.

What problem can be discussed and solved here? Very often, a research text does not document the research process. We can borrow this practice from artists - they, as researchers, made a strong move. Good fiction documents every intellectual turn. They clearly separate the presentation and documentation of the cognitive process, the process of searching for artistic truth. Their ability to work with documentation is very impressive.

What to do? Think about researcher autonomy. Just as an anarchist lives under the state and carries out his political activities without regard to it, so the researcher must create something without regard to science, or with regard, but autonomously.

WHAT IS THE IDEA OF THE AUTONOMY OF RESEARCH?

It is a process that is not rigidly and exclusively linked to the institution and disciplinary framework in which this research takes place. Of course, initially it is associated with them. But the process of autonomization just means the establishment of relations not only with the world, but also with the framework from which the researcher leaves. An autonomous researcher may well be a university employee living within the discipline of history or urban studies, but part of the researcher's reflection may be devoted to these frameworks.

HOW DO I STATEMENT THESE THINGS IN THE TEXT?

Do we have a form for this? Is there an approach? How can different genres, including scientific work, show our doubt and our moves? There are two problems with the kind of doubt that is usually recorded in an academic paper. The first is that doubts about the method are usually indicated at the bottom, in the “limitations” column. Like, we did not know how best to act in this situation, we chose this approach, it seems that it is not ideal. He may have such disadvantages. Of course, honest scientists record this. But these restrictions are often listed at the very end. And there is often no doubt as to whether this particular theory, this method, this path, will make it possible to understand the phenomenon with which we are dealing. That is, there are doubts around particulars, but not around the approach itself.

If doubt were more tightly integrated into a scientific article, it would not be able to speak about the results and become a support for expert and applied knowledge. As soon as we say “and here we are very unsure” - our article is either not taken to the journal, or the people who read this article do not believe us. It seems like there should always be persuasiveness in the conclusions.

And I do it myself. When I work with a literature review, I usually divide people into two camps. Those whose line I follow and those with whom I argue. But the format of a scientific article suggests that it takes one and a half pages. And on one and a half pages you cannot justify in detail why you do not agree with this or that researcher. The full path from ignorance to problem is never obvious. It seems to me that this is a problem of scientific genres in general, which would be great to discuss as part of the work with student essays. Very often, in my opinion, a productive sensible essay is just a detailed documentation and explication of this path.

A text that can accommodate these research problems I'm talking about should have the following ingredients.

One is the limitations and arguments that show the incompleteness of knowledge.
The second is documentation of the way we go from ignorance and our question to the problem.
Statement of the problem and position is related to ethics and politics. Here we usually say why we consider this a problem. Why do we consider centralization rather than decentralization a problem if we study social media. Why do we think, let's say that the concentration of power in the hands of corporations is a problem, but the dispersion of power among different activists, on the contrary, is not a problem.

Of course, people think about such things, but very rarely reach the end and describe the problem itself, and the forks, and the circumstances for which they decided to do this and not otherwise.

Another problem with classical scientific texts is that we must initially assume something, although very often, to be honest, we start with complete ignorance. At this moment, a difficult road begins for us, which deserves to be described. Maybe not in the main texts that researchers produce within their non-autonomy - in science, in journalism, somewhere else - but as spin-off projects. It is always interesting to read separate headings in scientific journals, where there is a reflection of approaches to research, where scientists describe their first steps in understanding the problem, orientation to the terrain. This is what in Russian is called intelligence / exploratory research (exploratory research). With these ideas, you can try to work in different genres of writing and not only writing.

HOW MAY THE RESULTS OF THE STUDY LOOK LIKE?

I am a skeptic about the very concept of result. I do not believe in the existence of the result as such. In the world of any writing or studying person, there is a terrible word “deadline”. This is usually the moment when you have to send an email or upload a file to some site. The basic idea is that meeting the deadline and submitting the work is the result. Sometimes, however, the result is an evaluation or review.

But already students who consistently work on one topic know that the first term paper is not the result. We tried it, and if it worked out, then the second work, the third one follows. That is, within the framework of the university, the submitted work is not always the result.

If we go beyond the university, things are even worse. You write an article, you publish it, and no one ever links to it. This, of course, is a result in itself, but it is not clear what it shows.

Journalism is also difficult. My article is published in the newspaper and they say: “Look, is everything all right?” And I say: "But it's already made up." And they answer me: “But we haven’t let her on the social network yet.” That is, here the result is the entry of the article into the social environment.

Sometimes this is not the result either. For example, in the case of institutional criticism. Criticism of the education system, for example. Ideally, if 10 journalists did an investigation and published it, something in the world should change. This is the result - the impact of the text on the world. It can also be a report of experts who work as researchers in institutions related to the study of education or medicine. You made a report, you published it, the institution listened. In fact, this may not work either.

But talking about the text still seems important to me, because that's something we have control over. We cannot change the way corporations work, we cannot change the education and healthcare systems, we are not in control of everything in our lives and even in our bodies. Our ability to act and affect the world is limited. And it seems to me that it makes sense for us, as researchers, to reflect on the ways of interaction, it makes sense to think about this without looking back at institutions. It makes sense to think about what we can produce and consider this as a result (maybe intermediate). But the main thing is to consider this point of refraction of our interests and our reflection as autonomous researchers from other frameworks.

The Shaninka Library asked Polina Colozaridi to name some books that are important to her. The result is this list:

1) John Lo. After the method: disorder and social science./Trans. from English. ed. S. Gavrilenko. M.: Gaidar Institute Publishing House, 2015.
2) Annette Markham (2005). Disciplining the future: A critical organizational analysis of Internet studies. The Information Society, 21(4), 257-267.
3) Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. Dialectics of education. Philosophical Fragments.

Per. with him. M. Kuznetsova. M. - St. Petersburg: Medium, Juventa, 1997.
4) Works by artist Lauren McCarthy http://lauren-mccarthy.com/

The lecture was held as part of the Research & Write seminar

Bloomberg called the military "autonomy" of Europe from the United States a pipe dream - RBC

adv.rbc.ru

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