Abstract
Collective intentionality (CI) designates a form of intentionality that cannot be understood in a summative way. For example, two persons who make a walk together do not simply intend individually to go their own way. Therefore, the question arises to what extent intentionality has to be understood as a concept that has to be extended beyond individual mental states. In this chapter, different approaches to CI are presented. According to the “reductive” analysis, CI can be analyzed in terms of individual mental states. In contrast to this approach, John Searle holds that the content of CI cannot be understood by an analysis based on an individual mode. Nevertheless, he holds that the bearers of CI can even be brains in a vat. This position is criticized, first, by those who argue that CI presupposes the idea of a collective subject and, second, by those who argue that an alternative to “individualistic” and “holistic” approaches can be seen in a relational understanding of CI. Nevertheless, in the chapter, it is argued that relational approaches do not necessarily contradict an individualistic understanding of CI.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Following Zahle, Jepperson’s and Meyer’s position may be classified as “temperate holism” which holds that “[e]xplanations in the social sciences must sometimes be strict holist explanations, i.e. refer to social wholes as wholes, their actions, properties, etc. only” (Zahle, 2007, p. 316).
- 2.
Some extensions and explanations are given later (Bratman, 2014). They can be ignored in our context.
- 3.
Public here refers to common knowledge.
- 4.
With respect to the question of the causal relevance of collective intentions, the debate on collective intentionality has so far remained silent. However, it is crucial to the question of individualism and holism, as has become clear since Kim's work on emergence (Kim, 2000, 2005). If collective states supervene on individual states, this does not mean that they are independent in an ontological sense. Even if it remains epistemically unclear to which individual states exactly a collective state can be traced (the so-called non-aggregativity), the question remains how collective states can have an independent causal influence if they are ontologically identical to the individual states through which they are realized (Greve, 2012).
References
Baier, A. C. (1997). Doing things with others: The mental commons. In L. Alanen, S. Heinämaa & T. Wallgren (Eds.), Commonality and particularity in ethics. Swansea studies in philosophy (pp. 15–44). Palgrave Macmillan.
Bratman, M. E. (1993). Shared intention. Ethics, 104(1), 97–113.
Bratman, M. E. (1999). I intend that We J. In M. E. Bratman (Ed.), Faces of intention: Selected essays on intention and agency (pp. 142–161). Cambridge University Press.
Bratman, M. E. (2014). Shared agency: A planning theory of acting together. Oxford University Press.
Bulle, N. (2018). Methodological individualism as anti-reductionism. Journal of Classical Sociology, 1–24.
Bunge, M. (1996). Finding philosophy in social science. Yale University Press.
Davidson, D. (1984). Inquiries into truth and interpretation. Oxford University Press.
Di Iorio, F. (2023, forthcoming). Methodological individualism and reductionism. In N. Bulle & F. Di Iorio (Eds.), Palgrave handbook of methodological individualism (Vol. II). Palgrave.
Donati, P., & Archer, M. S. (2015). The relational subject. Cambridge University Press.
Durkheim, E. (1982 [1894]). The rules of sociological method. Free Press.
Gilbert, M. (1992). On social facts. Princeton University Press.
Gilbert, M. (2010). Culture as collective construction? In G. Albert & S. Sigmund (Eds.), Soziologische Theorie kontrovers. 50. Sonderheft der Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie (pp. 383–393). VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.
Gilbert, M. (2015). Joint action. In J. D. Wright (Ed.), International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences (Vol. 12, 2, pp. 839–843). Elsevier.
Greve, J. (2012). Emergence in sociology: A critique of non-reductive individualism. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 42(2), 188–223. (First online, 2010). 10.1177/ 0048393110381770.
Heath, J. (2020). Methodological individualism—The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Summer 2020 Edition).
Hodgson, G. M. (2007). Meanings of methodological individualism. https://core.ac.uk/display/1638809?utm_source=pdf&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=pdf-decoration-v1. Accessed 6 January 2023.
Huff, T. (1984). Max Weber and the methodology of the social sciences. Transaction Books.
Jepperson, R., & Meyer, J. W. (2011). Multiple levels of analysis and the limitations of methodological individualisms. Sociological Theory, 29(1), 54–73.
Johansson, I. (2003). Searle’s monadological construction of social reality. The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 62(1), 233–255.
Kim, J. (2000). Making sense of downward causation. In P. B. Anderson, C. Emmeche, N. O. Finnemann & P. V. Christiansen (Eds.), Downward Causation (pp. 305–321). Aarhus University Press.
Kim, J. (2005). Physicalism, or something near enough. Princeton University Press.
Kutz, C. (2000). Acting together. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 61(1), 1–31.
Lohse, S. (2019). Die Eigenständigkeit des Sozialen. Zur ontologischen Kritik des Individualismus. Mohr Siebeck.
Lukes, S. (1968). Methodological individualism reconsidered. The British Journal of Sociology, 19(2), 119–129.
Meijers, A. W. M. (2003). Can collective intentionality be individualized? The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 62(1), 167–183.
Parsons, T. (1951). The social system. Free Press.
Parsons, T., Bales, R., & Shils, E. A. (1953). Working papers in the theory of action. Free Press.
Parsons, T., Shils, E. A., Allport, G. W., Kluckhohn, C., Murray, H. A., Sears, R. R., et al. (1951). Some fundamental categories of the theory of action: A general statement. In T. Parsons & E. A. Shils (Eds.), Toward a General Theory of Action (pp. 3–29). Havard University Press.
Pettit, P. (2003). Groups with minds of their own. In F. F. Schmitt (Ed.), Socializing metaphysics. The nature of social reality (pp. 167–193). Rowman & Littlefield.
Pettit, P. (2014). Three issues in social ontology. In J. Zahle & F. Collin (Eds.), Rethinking the individualism-holism debate. Essays in the philosophy of social science (pp. 77–96). Springer.
Pettit, P., & Schweikard, D. (2006). Joint actions and group agents. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 36(1), 18–39.
Risjord, M. (2104). Philosophy of social science. A contemporary introduction. Routledge.
Schelling, T. C. (1978). Micromotives and Macrobehavior. W.W. Norton & Company.
Schmid, H.-B. (2005). Wir-Intentionalität: Kritik des Ontologischen Individualismus und Rekonstruktion der Gemeinschaft. Alber.
Schweikard, D. P. (2008). Limiting reductionism in the theory of collective action. In H. B. Schmid, K. Schulte-Ostermann & N. Psarros (Eds.), Concepts of sharedness—Essays on collective intentionality (pp. 89–117). Ontos.
Schweikard, D. P., & Schmid, H.-B. (2021). Collective intentionality, the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Fall 2021 Edition). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2021/entries/collective-intentionality/. Accessed 6 January 2023.
Searle, J. R. (1990). Collective intentions and actions. In P. R. Cohen, J. Morgan, & M. Pollack (Eds.), Intentions in communication (pp. 401–415). MIT Press.
Searle, J. R. (1995). The construction of social reality. Penguin.
Searle, J. R. (2010). Making the social world. The structure of human civilization. Oxford University Press.
Stoutland, F. (1997). Why are philosophers of action so anti-social?” In L. Alanen, S. Heinämaa & T. Wallgren (Eds.), Commonality and particularity in ethics. Swansea studies in philosophy (pp. 45–74). Palgrave Macmillan.
Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., Call, J., Behne, T., & Moll, H. (2005). Understanding and sharing intentions: The origins of cultural cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28(5), 675–691 and 721–735.
Tuomela, R. (2005). We-intentions revisited. Philosophical Studies, 125(3), 327–369.
Tuomela, R., & Miller, K. (1988). We-intentions. Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, 53(3), 367–389.
Udehn, L. (2001). Methodogical individualism. Background, history and meaning. Routledge.
Velleman, J. D. (1997). How to share an intention. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 57(1), 29–50.
Watkins, J. W. N. (1973 [1952]). Ideal types and historical explanation. In J. O'Neill (Ed.), Modes of individualism and collectivism (pp. 143–165). Heinemann.
Watkins, J. W. N. (1973 [1957]). Historical explanation in the social sciences. In J. O'Neill (Ed.), Modes of individualism and collectivism (pp. 166–178). Heinemann.
Weber, M. (1958). From Max Weber; Essays in sociology (Translated, edited and with an Introduction by H. H. Gerth & C. Wright Mills). Oxford University Press.
Weber, M. (1968 [1922]). Economy and society. An outline of interpretive sociology (G. Roth & C. Wittich, Eds.). University of California Press.
Wittgenstein, L. (2009 [1953]). Philosophical investigations. Wiley-Blackwell.
Zahle, J. (2007). Holism and supervenience. In S. P. Turner & M. W. Risjord (Eds.), Handbook of the philosophy of science. Philosophy of anthropology and sociology (pp. 311–341). Elsevier.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Greve, J. (2023). Collective Intentionality and Methodological Individualism. In: Bulle, N., Di Iorio, F. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Methodological Individualism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41508-1_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41508-1_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-41507-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-41508-1
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)