What do we do when we say ‘We’? This paper pursues a response from analytic pragmatism. The guiding idea of analytic pragmatism is to look to what one must implicitly know how do to be able to use expressions to say something, including how to make that implicit know-how explicit. Accordingly, the question we are tasked to answer is what one must know how to do to say ‘We’ – that is, what practical know-how saying ‘We’ requires and can be (...) employed to make explicit. The concept normative ascent is introduced in developing an answer. On this approach, the know-how in question turns out to be a distinctively normative capacity. Both being and saying ‘We’ turns out to involve being able to do and say something normative. (shrink)

Phenomenological discussions of sociality have long been concerned with the relations between the I, the You, and the We. Recently, dialogue between phenomenology and analytic philosophical work on collective intentionality has given rise to a corpus of literature oriented around the first-person plural 'we'. In this paper, I demonstrate how these dominant accounts of the 'we' are not exhaustive of first-person plural experiences as such. I achieve these aims by arguing for a phenomenological distinction between an experience of being part (...) of a 'we' compared to an experience of being part of an 'us'. To have a 'we-experience' there must be a plurality of (unified) subjects sharing in an experience together such that the experience has the phenomenal character of being ours. An 'us-experience', on the other hand, requires the experiential salience of an external 'Third' in a way which is constitutively significant. Drawing on Sartrean social ontology, I argue that the 'us' is distinct from the 'we' on three levels, all of which pertain to the constitutive and unifying role of the Third. I then outline two forms of us-experiences: (1) the experience of being grouped and (2) the experience of apprehending one's seriality. (shrink)

Despite growing appreciation in recent decades of the importance of shared intentional mental states as a foundation for everything from divergences in primate evolution, to the institution of communal norms, to trends in the development of modernity as a socio-political phenomenon, we lack an adequate understanding of the relationship between individual and shared intentionality. At the same time, it is widely appreciated that deontic reasoning concerning what ought, may, and ought not be done is, like reasoning about our intentions, an (...) exercise of practical rationality. Taking advantage of this fact, I use a plan-theoretic semantics for the deontic modalities as a basis for understanding individual and shared intentions. This results in a view that accords well with what we currently have reason to believe about the phylogenetic and ontogenetic development of norm psychology and shared intentionality in human beings, and where original intentionality can be understood in terms of the shared intentionality of a community. (shrink)

Drawing on recent phenomenological discussions of collective intentionality and existential phenomenological accounts of agency, this article proposes a novel interpretation of shared action. First, I argue that we should understand action on the basis of how an environment pre-reflectively solicits agents to behave based on (a) the affordances or goals inflected by their abilities and dispositions and (b) their self-referential commitment to a project that is furthered by these affordances. Second, I show that this definition of action is sufficiently flexible (...) to account for not only individual action (in which both (a) and (b) refer only to an individual) but also several distinct subtypes of shared action. My thesis is that behaviour counts as shared action if and only if it is caused by a solicitation in which either (a) the goals, or (b) the commitments, or both (a) goals and (b) commitments are joint, i.e., depend on several individuals. We thereby get three distinct subtypes of shared actions: (i) jointly coordinated individually committed action, (ii) individually coordinated jointly committed action, and (iii) jointly coordinated jointly committed action. (shrink)

Direct perception and theory-theory approaches to social cognition are opposed with respect to whether social cognition is inferential. The latter argues that it is inferential, the former that it is not. This paper argues that the opposition in terms of inference is mistaken. A sense of inference is specified on which social cognition can be inferential and directly perceptual. Arguing for inferential social cognition does not commit to a defense of indirect social cognition if inferential access to other minds can (...) be direct. Contrary convictions are symptomatic of working with too simplistic a notion of inference. The dispute between direct and inferentialist social cognition is one where both sides can be right. The argument, then, is that inferentialism should not be called on to witness in favor or disfavor of advocates of either direct or indirect social cognition. (shrink)

I address the question of whether naturalism can provide adequate means for the scientific study of rules and rule-following behavior. As the term "naturalism" is used in many different ways in the contemporary debate, I will first spell out which version of naturalism I am targeting. Then I will recall a classical argument against naturalism in a version presented by Husserl. In the main part of the paper I will sketch a conception of rule-following behavior that is influenced by Sellars (...) and Haugeland. I will argue that rule-following is an essential part of human nature and insist in the social dimension of rules. Moreover, I will focus on the often overlooked fact that genuine rule-following behavior requires resilience and presupposes an inclination to calibrate one's own behavior to that of the other members of the community. Rule-following, I will argue, is possible only for social creatures who follow shared rules, which in turn presupposes a shared (first-person plural) perspective. This implies, however, that our scientific understanding of human nature has to remain incomplete as long as it does not take this perspective, which prima facie seems alien to it, into account. (shrink)

I argue for the view that some we-thoughts are immune to error through misidentification (IEM) relative to the first-person plural pronoun. To prepare the ground for this argument I defend an account of the semantics of ‘we’ and note the variety of different uses of that term. I go on to defend the IEM of a certain range of we-thoughts against a number of objections.

The metaphysical question presupposes the ontological one: are there forms of social unit that can be recognized as real groups and, if so, what are they? The ontological answer can be affirmative only if we are able to identify real collective entities, that is, social wholes that are not reducible to the mere sum of their individual parts. Through an ontological comparison between different types of social interaction, this paper shows the ontological properties of a real collective subject. It is (...) such, only if relations between its constituent parts generate an intrinsic normative structure, which gives existence to a higher order of social units. In this order members are bound to each other and are collectively bound to their group. They are bearers of collective intentionality. Their actions contribute to collective agency. Their responsibility is more complex and stratified than that of an independent individual. Moreover, all types of real wholes depend on ontological constitution processes, which give them the following: an intrinsic structural unit, a typological identity and emerging properties. The latter can be both new characteristics and new causal powers, which constituent parts do not have. Therefore, a right understanding of these ontological constitution processes is capable of overcoming reductionist isomorphism. It also offers the fundamental criterion for proposing a metaphysical theory that, being rooted in a rigorous ontology, is not an arbitrary exercise of imagination. (shrink)

This paper explores how the phenomenon of Joint Attention (JA) drives certain core features of team sport and how sport illuminates the nature of JA. In JA, two or more agents focus on the same object in mutual awareness that the content of their experience is thus shared. JA is essential to joint sporting actions. The sporting context is particularly useful for illustrating the phenomenon of JA and provides a valuable lens through which to examine rival theoretical accounts of its (...) workings. This paper draws novel connections between the respective philosophical literatures on JA and sport, suggesting prospects for mutually advantageous cross-pollination. I contend that the workings of JA within joint sporting action are misconstrued on intellectualistic and individualistic theories which posit reductive explanations in terms of the contents of individual minds. The best evidence and strongest philosophical arguments support ‘relational’ accounts whereby joint sporting actions exceed the sum of their parts. I reject the ‘extensionalist’ contention, associated with ‘lean’ versions of the relationalist approach, that objects of JA are individuated in terms of causal properties not sensitive to how they are perceived. Siding instead with ‘rich’ versions of the view, I argue that team collaboration depends on convergence in terms of the ‘aspectual shape’ of the objects of JA. Finally, a further possible application for these ideas is suggested: that JA plays a central role in the constitution of sport-specific kinds. On this proposal, JA facilitates collective perceptual recognition of particular objects and situations as embodying the general types described in the rulebook, playing an important role in creating and sustaining the public ‘social space’ of sporting competition. (shrink)

We seem to ascribe mental states and agency to groups. We say ‘Google knows such-and-such,’ or ‘Amazon intends to do such-and-such.’ This observation of ordinary parlance also found its way into philosophical accounts of social groups and collective intentionality. However, these discussions are usually quiet about how groups self-ascribe their own beliefs and intentions. Apple might explain to its shareholders that it intends to bring a new iPhone to the market next year. But how does Apple know what it intends? (...) How do groups get to know their own mental states? This is the question of collective self-knowledge. I argue that collective self-knowledge is a distinct phenomenon that deserves our attention. In particular I suggest: that we should be interested in collective self-knowledge, because our behaviour indicates that we already engage with collective self-knowledge in practice; that groups can collectively avow, which indicates that they have privileged and peculiar access to their own intentional states; and that collective self-knowledge is not reducible to intentional states of individuals and therefore is an independent explanandum. (shrink)

‘We’ is said in many ways. This paper investigates Kurt Stavenhagen’s neglected account of different kinds of ‘we’, which is maintained to be one of the most sophisticated within classical phenomen...

Interdisciplinary interest in affordances is increasing. This paper is a philosophical contribution. The question is: Do persons offer affordances? Analysis of the concepts ‘person’ and ‘affordance’ supports an affirmative answer. On a widely accepted understanding of what persons are, persons exhibit many of the features typical of socionormative affordances. However, to understand persons as offering affordances requires, on the face of it, stretching traditional understandings of the concept of affordance: persons, in contrast to the organisms that partially constitute persons, do (...) not seem to be available to perception. This and similar worries are responded to. (shrink)

The cognitive revolution has left its mark on institutional theory in sociology and political science. Cognitive structures – schemas, typifications, frames and ideas – are recognized as a crucial variable of social behavior, institutional development and collective action. However, while the assertion that “ideas matter” is widely shared, institutional theorists are still struggling with the question of _how_ ideas matter, especially in motivational terms. The role of ideas not just as switchmen, in Weber’s terms, but as genuine drivers of collective (...) action still lacks theoretical underpinning. This article aims at closing this gap. It elaborates a theoretical model to explain how ideas shift the structure of motivation from the individual to the collective level. Borrowing from motivational psychology and social philosophy, especially from the work of John Searle, two crucial mechanisms are explicated. The first one is imagination, a specific mental state that allows collectivizing the intentional structure of beliefs and affords a sense of self-efficacy in collective contexts. The second one is plural self-awareness, a mechanism that shifts intentions-in-action to the collective level. (shrink)

This is a contribution to the controversy which of individual or collective intentionality is more fundamental. I call it the fundamentality-question. In a first step, I argue that it is really two questions. One is about sense and one about reference. The first is: Can one grasp or understand the concept individual intentionality and, correspondingly, individuality, on the one hand, without grasping or understanding the concept collective intentionality and, correspondingly, collectivity, on the other? The second is: Can the concept individual (...) intentionality and corresponding concept of individuality, on the one hand, refer to something without the concept of collective intentionality and corresponding concept of collectivity referring to something, on the other? Simplifying somewhat, this elaborated fundamentality-question admits of nine answers. In a second step, I pursue a tentative answer to the elaborated fundamentality-question. Given a disambiguation of individuality and, correspondingly, individual intentionality, the answer is the combination of claims that individuality and individual intentionality in one sense is fundamental in reference-dependence but that collectivity and collective intentionality is fundamental in reference-dependence in the other sense of individuality, while collectivity and collective intentionality is in both cases fundamental in sense-dependence. (shrink)