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The family presents an interesting challenge to many conceptions of collective activity and the makeup of social groups. Social philosophers define social groups as being comprised of individuals who knowingly consent to their group membership or voluntarily act to continue their group membership. This notion of voluntarism that is built into the concept of a social group rests upon a narrow conception of agency that is difficult to extend beyond ableminded autonomous adults. Families, however, are often comprised of members who supposedly lack this developed sense of agency and are therefore considered incapable of consenting to join or remain in a group: infants and small children. So, the family seems to be an odd fit for the designation of social group, even though it is often heralded as a paradigm example of one. In this paper I argue that children and infants are in fact agents who are capable of collective intentionality, especially in the context of the family where they act cooperatively and reciprocally with their caretakers. In doing so, I present an understanding of the family as a social group that has degrees of voluntarism for all members in the forms of joint readiness and joint commitment. I argue for this in three steps. First, I employ Margaret Gilbert's concepts of joint commitment and joint readiness as a framework for collective intentionality. Second, echoing Carol Gould, I argue that we ought to expand our understanding of agency beyond the ideal case. Third, I draw upon recent research from Michael Tomasello that demonstrate a child's ability to act cooperatively and reciprocally. Together these steps provide a strong foundation for the claim that children and infants are agents capable of collective intentionality within families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many ways to advance our understanding of the human mind by studying different kinds of sociality. Our aim in this introduction is to situate claims about extended cognition within a broader framework of research on human sociality. We briefly discuss the existing landscape, focusing on ways of defending socially extended cognition. We then draw on resources from the recent literature on the socially extended mind, as well as the literature on collective intentionality, to provide a framework for thinking about the social dimension of individual minds. We then turn to a brief overview of the individualistic approaches advanced by Ludwig and Spaulding in this volume. And we close with a discussion of the transformative role of the social mind in individual life presented by Kern and Moll, as well as the distributed approach to interacting systems defended by Goldstone and Theiner. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The basic approach to understanding shared agency (or joint action) has been to identify individual intentional states that are somehow “shared” by participants and that contribute to guiding and informing the actions of individual participants. But, as Michael Bratman suggests, there is a problem of stability and depth that any theory of shared agency needs to solve. Given that participants in a joint action might form shared intentions for different reasons, what binds them to one another such that they have some reason for continuing to participate in the joint action in the face of conflicting reasons? This is particularly pressing in cases of joint actions that unfold over long periods of time. There are a variety of ways that the problem of stability and depth of shared intention might be addressed. We review some of those ways in section 1. We do not intend to challenge these approaches. Instead, in this article, we want to suggest that narrative is an additional, perhaps in some cases a predominant, way in which stability and depth are achieved. According to some theories, narrative plays a crucial role in the development of the self. Our suggestion is that the narratives we tell about our joint projects contribute to the development of a stable and deep “we.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dewey’s social ontology could be characterized as a habit ontology, an ontology of habit qua second nature that offers us an account of intentionality, social statuses, institutions and norms in terms of habituations. Such an account offers us a promising alternative to contemporary intentionalist and deontic approaches to social ontology such as Searle’s. Furthermore, it could be the basis of a social ontology better suited to explain both the maintenance and the transformation of social reality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many philosophers regard collective behavior and attitudes as the ground of the whole of social reality. According to this popular view, society is composed basically of collective intentions and cooperative behaviors; this is so both for informal contexts involving small groups and for complex institutional structures. In this article, I challenge this view, and propose an alternative approach, which I term institutional externalism. I argue that institutions are characterized by the tendency to defer to elements that are external to the content of collective intentions—such as laws, declarations, and contracts. According to institutional externalism, those elements are the grounds of institutional statutes, rights, and duties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban self-organization (USO) is an important topic within the field of contemporary participatory planning. This article aims to investigate the role of certain socio-psychological traits embedded within the notion of USO. We will argue that USO builds upon on the relationship between processes of community organizing, socio-spatial proximity and, most intriguingly, collective intentionality. The intellectual and sensory experience of self-organizing processes is examined through the help of three spatially anchored community initiatives within The Netherlands. We suggest that our investigation into collective intentionality of USO has a promising role in setting the future research agenda for supporting a more inclusive planning theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article applies Deleuze's metaphysics of multiplicities to groups of people, arguing that organized groups can be said to have mental states in the same sense as individuals. I begin by outlining the genealogy of Deleuze's use of the concept of multiplicity, beginning with Riemann and continuing through Bergson. Deleuze's transformation of these two thinkers' ideas results in a concept of any individual as a conjunction of two types of multiplicity, one relating to its material parts and one relating to its ideal or virtual parts. I then turn to Deleuze's theory of the mental faculties and argue that it describes a virtual multiplicity that, for Deleuze, is instantiated in human beings and other entities that can be said to think or have minds. I argue that many organized social groups have these mental faculties in the same way that individual people do and that therefore they can be said to have minds and mental states of their own, independent of the mental states of their members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The anthropocentric view holds that the social world is a projection of mental states and attitudes onto the real world. However, there is more to a society of individuals than their psychological make up. In The Ant Trap, Epstein hints at the possibility that collective intentionality can, and should, be discarded as a pillar of social ontology. In this commentary I argue that this claim is motivated by an outdated view of the nature and structure of collective attitudes. If we aim at a good theory of social ontology, we need a good theory of collective intentionality.

This paper is a reply to the comments by Henrike Moll, Glenda Satne, Ladislav Koreň and Michael Schmitz on Michael Tomasello, A Natural History of Human Thinking (Harvard University Press, 2014).

Social accounts of objective content, like the one advanced by Tomasello (2014), are traditionally challenged by an ‘essential tension’ (Hutto and Satne 2015). The tension is the following: while sociality is deemed to be at the basis of thinking, in order to explain sociality, some form of thinking seems to be necessarily presupposed. In this contribution I analyse Tomasello’s two-step theory of the evolution of human thinking vis-à-vis this challenge. While his theory is in principle suited to address it, I claim that the specifics of the first step and the notion of perspective that infuse it are problematic in this regard. I end by briefly sketching an alternative.

A précis of Michael Tomasello, A Natural History of Human Thinking (Harvard University Press, 2014).

There is a well-developed view of artifacts according to which their nature depends on the intentions of their authors or creators. However, in the modern world of artifact design and creation, typically not one but many agents are involved in the process of making an artifact. In this paper, I show how the intentional view can be maintained even for ‘collective’ artifacts having multiple authors. My approach is to combine some basic concepts that have been proposed in the study of collective intentionality with a suitable model of artifact creation that takes account of the multiple agents and processes that arise in design, engineering and manufacturing a new or existing product. In this way, we can explain how an artifactual kind can be understood via a form of collective intentionality. For the design sciences, notions such as we-intentionality and group agency can help to model different types of cooperation and, in particular, to reconcile individualism with strong forms of collectivity at a group level.

This paper aims to present Searle's conception of institutional reality as an important contribution to contemporary political philosophy and social theory. Its importance notwithstanding, the two objections will be raised concerning the central notion of collective intentionality. Searle thinks of this notion as crucial for explaining human cooperation and social reality. The first objection is that Searle missed to take into account the rationality assumption in his explanation of cooperation and human interaction. The second objection is related to the previous one. Additionally, Serle missed to investigate the role of autonomous moral agent in the procedure of constructing social reality. Given this shortcoming there is no possibility for addressing the question of justice within Serle's theory of institutional reality.

The purpose of this theoretical investigation was to examine critical thinking as a realization of human cooperation, affecting both mental health and social welfare. Although critical thinking contains a critical stance toward any asserted standpoint, such a critical stance appears, paradoxically, to have developed from cooperation and the shared goals of human beings. Moreover, although critical thinking has been seen in academic literature to be anchored on culturally developed rules and principles of rational dialogue as well as on effective learning methods, investigators have not interconnected critical thinking and human cooperation comprehensively enough. To solve the dilemma, we will use available scientific knowledge to examine how cooperation and socially shared goals are realized in critical thinking, especially in a critical stance. The view of critical thinking as cooperation places it ontogenetically and phylogenetically into a wider theoretical framework which also provides a novel perspective on mental health and social welfare. The deterioration of rational thinking in the context of mental disorders may be explained by failures of cooperation, which can contain epistemic distrust and an inability to mentalize the viewpoints of others. These features may clarify some causes why some contemporary dialogues and critical contributions are divisive in worldwide, especially in social media. • Critical thinking is grounded on human species-specific cooperation. • Cooperation guides many basic principles of critical thinking. • The continuous use of fallacies are failures of cooperation. • Epistemic distrust and inability to mentalize disturb critical thinking. • Critical thinking as cooperation supports mental health and social welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bridging two traditions of social ontology, this paper examines the possibility that the concept of collective intentionality can help to explain the mechanisms underpinning the causal powers of some social entities. In particular, I argue that a minimal form of collective intentionality is part of the mechanism underpinning the causal power of norm circles: the social entities causally responsible for social norms. There are, however, many different forms of social entity with causal power, and the relationship of collective intentionality to these causal powers varies, depending on the form of the mechanism underpinning the power concerned. Some powers depend on collective intentionality, and others do not.

In this article I argue that the shift from a private to a public–social understanding of religion raises new ontological and epistemological questions for the scientific study of religion\s. These questions are deeply related to three central features of the emic–etic debate, namely the problems of intentionality, objectivity, and comparison. Focusing on these interrelated issues, I discuss the potential of John Searle’s philosophy of society for the scientific study of religion\s. Considering the role of intentionality at the social level, I present Searle’s concept of “social ontology” and discuss its epistemological implications. To clarify Searle’s position regarding the objectivity of the social sciences, I propose a heuristic model contrasting different stances within the scientific study of religion\s. Finally, I explore some problematic aspects of Searle’s views for a comparative study of religion\s, and sketch a solution within his framework. I shall argue that a distinction between the epistemological and ontological dimensions of religious affairs would help clarify the issues at stake in the past and future of the emic–etic debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the intentional actions of collective entities, such as corporations and agencies, are not necessarily joint intentional actions by several members of those collectives. I briefly summarize the social action theories of John Searle, Michael Bratman, Margaret Gilbert, Raimo Tuomela, and Seumas Miller, which I argue are all theories of joint action. I then describe a case based loosely on events from the 2008 financial crisis in which an intentional collective action is performed by a corporation due to the actions of two employees who have no knowledge of one another, and therefore cannot be engaged in a joint intentional action. I argue that this shows that, contrary to what joint action theorists are committed to, every intentional collective action does not entail the existence of a joint intentional action. Finally, I suggest that we should look for a weaker notion of coordination than that employed by joint action theories, and that this might be provided by examining the command structures of organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to direct perception theory (DPT) people understand each other’s minds by way of perceiving each other’s behavioral engagements in the world. I argue that DPT admits of two interpretations. One interpretation is found in Searle’s social ontology. The other interpretation departs from an enactivist account of social cognition. Both can make sense of what it is to perceive other minds, but in two different ways. The first claims that people can directly perceive states of mind shared in a community. In contrast, the second interpretation allows for direct perception of particular individuals’ states of mind in the context of participation in social practices. The two interpretations are argued to be compatible. People can perceive communal states of mind in another’s responsiveness to action possibilities in social environments, not only the particular other’s states of mind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I want to argue that acts of blame are performed by collectives, and not by any collective but only by collectives that satisfy certain conditions - broadly those that, by collectivizing reason, can be held to be autonomous subjects to which it makes sense to attribute attitudes, including participant reactive attitudes such as resentment. The actors involved must also be related to the collective in particular ways in order to hold and be held responsible, but they need not have the same attitudes as the collective. This implies both that our attributions of moral responsibility to an agent does not depend only on facts about the agent but also on facts about us, and that the reasons for which we hold responsible and by which we justify our moral practices, and which the agent can likewise appeal to in an attempt to avoid being held responsible, depend on the collective involved and its substantive ethical precepts. The answer to whether an agent is responsible, or is an appropriate object of a reactive attitude, is not to be settled purely by philosophical analysis, and even the kind of naturalistic description of the pattern of our reactive attitudes that [22] suggests in "Freedom and Resentment" will only go part of the way - the excuses and exemptions are things we might say in a dialogue where reasons are exchanged, but each collective has some leeway over what substantive reasons count as grounds of an excuse or exemption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a well-developed view of artifacts according to which their nature depends on the intentions of their authors or creators. However, in the modern world of artifact design and creation, typically not one but many agents are involved in the process of making an artifact. In this paper, I show how the intentional view can be maintained even for 'collective' artifacts having multiple authors. My approach is to combine some basic concepts that have been proposed in the study of collective intentionality with a suitable model of artifact creation that takes account of the multiple agents and processes that arise in design, engineering and manufacturing a new or existing product. In this way, we can explain how an artifactual kind can be understood via a form of collective intentionality. For the design sciences, notions such as we-intentionality and group agency can help to model different types of cooperation and, in particular, to reconcile individualism with strong forms of collectivity at a group level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay can be read as both a tragedy of neoliberal governance and a paean to the resilience and creativity of humanity. Reporting an ethnographic assessment of the impacts of Denver's recent camping ban on homeless communities, I build on John Searle's constructivist social theory to argue not only that undomiciled people construct homes, but also that they exercise rights to property. Part of a social order, people living on the streets find creative ways to sheathe themselves in home spaces. By depriving them not only of the stability of their homes but also of the social power afforded by property, this ban dismantles heterodox orders, which then decay from anarchy. Nevertheless, accounts provided by homeless individuals themselves demonstrate that primitive property, though always fragile, can withstand emphatic disruption: this continued resilience is seen in the webs of mutual reciprocity previously and subsequently woven beneath, between, and behind state apparatuses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary and evaluation of the aims of the collection From Individual to Collective Intentionality: New Essays edited by Sara Rachel Chant, Frank Hindriks, and Gerhard Preyer in the context of the ongoing debate about collective intentionality and group agency. The individual essays contained therein are considered both from the perspective of how they advance the collection’s goals and the coherence of their individual arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article starts with the theses that it is the very concept of action that is at stake in many debates between philosophers and historians. Whereas in philosophy actions are conceptualized by reference to their beginning, namely their motives or intentions, in historiography the consequences of actions are much more in the focus of interest. Especially the debate about the dualism of structure and agency is characterized by different concepts of action. In the article it is argued that this dualism can be overcome by stressing the intentionality of collective actions. First, a concept of action is developed against the background of a theory of intentionality. Second, intentional collective action is distinguished from individual and social actions and an analysis of a collective we-intention is proposed. Third, it is argued that the development of social structures has to be understood by reference to intentional collective actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the critical theorist Axel Honneth, the identity of social groups is constituted by normative attitudes of interpersonal recognition. The present paper challenges and refines this view in two steps. In a first step, and drawing on the work on collective intentionality of Margaret Gilbert and Raimo Tuomela, it argues (a) that recognition is necessary but not sufficient for the formation of group identities, and (b) that the psychoanalytic experience of symbiotic fusion that supposedly underlies all attitudes of interpersonal recognition cannot compensate for this deficiency because it is compatible with only one of the several existing types of recognition. In a second step, and drawing on the work on social identity and crowd psychology of Stephen Reicher, it argues (c) that the unity of consciousness that secures the identity of some social groups is constituted by the attitudes of misrecognition individuals are exposed to when they participate in events such as riots, rebellions, and other forms of resistance to an antagonist. This seems to indicate (d) that experiences of negativity play a more substantial ontological role in social life than is typically assumed by philosophers of recognition like Axel Honneth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An initial answer to the question of the evolutionary path of the argumentative competence is offered. The hypothesis of collective intentionality and cooperation as structural features that allow to understand argumentation as a normative phenomenon is assumed. The paper concludes that argumentation was a product of selective pressure for the multiplication of alternative representations offered by a larger number of agents of the same or a different group. The evolutionary pressure selected the communication of good reasons by means of verbal conflict, and allowed the individual agent to generate a reputation that, in turn, profits her direct reproductive benefit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are cases of emotion that we readily describe as 'sharing emotions with other people.' How should we understand such cases? Joel Krueger has proposed the Joint Ownership Thesis (JOT): the view that two or more people can literally share the same emotional episode. His view is partly inspired by his reading of Merleau-Ponty--arguably Merleau-Ponty advocates a version of JOT in his "The child's relations with others." My critical analysis demonstrates that JOT is flawed in several respects: 1) It involves a vague account of joint subjects; 2) It relies on a confusion between phenomenological and ontological levels of analysis. When these are clearly distinguished, Krueger's phenomenological analysis contradicts JOT understood as an ontological claim; 3) It relies on a highly problematic coupling-constitution inference; 4) It relies on a shift from the claim that the child and the caregiver jointly realize an emotion, to the claim about joint ownership, which is a non sequitur. I argue that we can reach a better understanding of the phenomenon of shared emotions by bringing in another level of analysis: that of social relationships. I propose that shared emotions are a special case of social-relational emotions, typically arising within and/or giving rise to communal relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Edith Stein claims that communal experiences are not reducible to the collection of individual experiences directed to the same object or upon the same content. Based on this intuition she gives a phenomenological description of the intentional structure that is proper to communal experiences regarding to their content, mode, and subject. While expanding on her attempts to reassess Husserl's description of intentionality in an original social-ontological framework, I will stress her precious distinction between individual consciousness and communal stream of experience. I will argue that, if Stein defines the being of the community through its the communal stream of experience ( Erlebnisstrom), the latter has to be interpreted through Husserl's teleological concept of ideal multiplicity of experiences ( Erlebnismannigfaltigkeit). Discussing Stein's account both against the background of the methodology of Edmund Husserl's phenomenology and contextualizing it within the social-ontological struggle that took place in Germany during the Great War, I will focus on her description of we-intentionality and aim to unearth its phenomenological core as well as its methodological limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]