This paper offers a critical discussion of Searle's account of collective intentionality. It argues Bratman's alternative account avoids some of the shortcomings of Searle's account, over-intellectualizes collective intentionality and imposes an excessive cognitive burden on participating agents.Tthe capacities needed to sustain collective intentionality are examined in an attempt to show that we can preserve the gist of Bratman's account in a cognitively more parsimonious way.

Wilke et al. make significant headway in gaining a better understanding of the influence affect cues may have on action perception and judgement. In our view their account also brings up a row of important questions demanding further research. This concerns the role of conceptual and non-conceptual content and the different effects emotions of the same valence may play in the perception and judgement of action.

After a long period of neglect, the phenomenology of action has recently regained its place in the agenda of philosophers and scientists alike. The recent explosion of interest in the topic highlights its complexity. The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework allowing for a more precise characterization of the many facets of the phenomenology of agency, of how they are related and of their possible sources. The key assumption guiding this attempt is that the processes through (...) which the phenomenology of action is generated and the processes involved in the specification and control of action are strongly interconnected. I argue in favor of a three-tiered dynamic model of intention, link it to an expanded version of the internal model theory of action control and specification, and use this theoretical framework to guide an analysis of the contents, possible sources and temporal course of complementary aspects of the phenomenology of action. (shrink)

This paper introduces freely improvised joint actions, a class of joint actions characterized by highly unspecific goals and the unavailability of shared plans. For example, walking together just for the sake of walking together with no specific destination or path in mind provides an ordinary example of FIJAs, along with examples in the arts, e.g., collective free improvisation in music, improv theater, or contact improvisation in dance. We argue that classic philosophical accounts of joint action such as Bratman’s rule them (...) out because the latter require a capacity for planning that is idle in the case of FIJAs. This argument is structurally similar to arguments for minimalist accounts of joint action, and this invites a parallel minimalist account, which we provide in terms of a specific kind of shared intentions that do not require plan states. We further argue that the resulting minimalist account is different in kind from the sort of minimalism suggested by developmental considerations and conclude in favor of a pluralistic minimalism, according to which there are several ways for an account of joint action to be minimal. (shrink)

The intentionality of improvisation represents surely one of the most pressing and controversial issues in contemporary action theory: how do we find the way to characterize the proper intentionality of improvisation, which is an unplanned yet intentional action? This article will address this question bringing together Merleau-Ponty’s motor intentionality and Bergson’s conception of duration. My argument will unfold in three main stages. First, I will briefly describe the traditional scheme that is used to think of intentional action in contemporary action (...) theory and discuss how the phenomenon of improvisation casts doubts on it. Second, I will outline an initial, and provisional account of improvisation by crossing the descriptions of musical improvisation provided by Jankélévitch with the testimonials of two improvisatory composers—Enrico Pieranunzi and Keith Jarrett—and reports from Charles Rosen, an American pianist and Roger Sessions, an American composer. Finally, I will refine the basic concepts and lay out a phenomenological account of improvisation, by extending and applying the phenomenological notion of motor intentionality to the examples and testimonials gathered from the observation of a specific kind of improvisatory activity—musical composition. This methodology is intended to contrast both with more standard philosophical approaches based on hypothetical examples, and with more standard laboratory-based methodologies in cognitive sciences, psychology, and experimental philosophy. Overall, this approach is intended to redress the balance of action theory—one-sided directed towards planning, as a key aspect of human agency—with an analysis of the bodily and responsive aspect of intentionality. (shrink)

In this paper, I shall offer a sketch of a dynamic theory of intentions. I shall argue that several categories or forms of intentions should be distinguished based on their different (and complementary) functional roles and on the different contents or types of contents they involve. I shall further argue that an adequate account of the distinctive nature of actions and of their various grades of intentionality depends on a large part on a proper understanding of the dynamic transitions among (...) these different forms of intentions. I also hope to show that one further benefit of this approach is to open the way for a more perspicuous account of the phenomenology of action and of the role of conscious thought in the production of action. (shrink)