What is it called when an academic discipline is given human attributes as if it has its own agency?

Okay, so I'm fairly certain that there's a specific name for this that isn't anthropomorphism or personification, but instead some kind of logical fallacy or something similar... Consider:

• "Political science desires to be referred to as a hard science."
• "Sociology has learned a lot from psychology."
• "Biology saves lives."

At first I thought this was the pathetic fallacy, but I think that's incorrect now after looking at the specific situation more clearly.

Any help much appreciated!

Solution 1:

Nordquist, at ThoughtCo, has an article presenting Lakoff and Johnson's classification of metaphors:

Ontological metaphor (a figure that provides "ways of viewing events, activities, emotions, ideas, etc., as entities and substances") is one of the three overlapping categories of conceptual metaphors identified by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in Metaphors We Live By (1980).

An ontological metaphor is a type of metaphor (or figurative comparison) in which something concrete is projected onto something abstract.

The other two categories are structural metaphor and orientational metaphor.

Ontological metaphors "are so natural and persuasive in our thought," say Lakoff and Johnson, "that they are usually taken as self-evident, direct descriptions of mental phenomena." Indeed, they say, ontological metaphors "are among the most basic devices we have for comprehending our experience."

The article goes on to discuss the various purposes of ontological metaphors:

Ontological metaphors serve various purposes, and the various kinds of metaphors there are reflect the kinds of purposes served. Take the experience of rising prices, which can be metaphorically viewed as an entity via the noun inflation. This gives us a way of referring to the experience:

INFLATION IS AN ENTITY

Inflation is lowering our standard of living.

If there's much more inflation, we'll never survive.

We need to combat inflation.

Inflation is backing us into a corner.

Inflation is taking its toll at the checkout counter and the gas pump.

Buying land is the best way of dealing with inflation.

Inflation makes me sick.

In these cases, viewing inflation as an entity allows us to refer to it, quantify it, identify a particular aspect of it, see it as a cause, act with respect to it, and perhaps even believe that we understand it. Ontological metaphors like this are necessary for even attempting to deal rationally with our experiences."

(George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By. The University of Chicago Press, 1980)

So the way political science, sociology, psychology, biology, ... logic, reason ... are used above fits with this definition of 'ontological metaphor'. It should be pointed out, though, that personification is seen as one form of ontological metaphor in the article.