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Collective intentionality

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Collective intentionality

Banno
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Posted 11/03/09 - 12:20 AM:	#31
vuic wrote: a) One of the forms that my collective intentionaltiy can take is simply "we intend".... This is a trivial fact. Yep. And it is what I take him to be saying. Hence my puzzlement at your rejection of the point. But I you have posted something else, and I will give consideration to it before proceeding.
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vuic
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Posted 11/03/09 - 12:50 AM:	#32
a) One of the forms that my collective intentionality can take is simply "we intend" I say again, this is a trivial statement that is beside the point. You are free to say "we intend" but this way of speaking arguably needs philosophical analysis to clarify its meaning. The bone of contention is whether "we intend" is wholly analysable in terms of individual intents (and is not a "primitive phenomenon" by implication) or not. Searle nowhere gives any convincing argument for its irreducibility, and there are lots of counterexamples to show that it is reducible to individual intents.

Banno
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Posted 11/06/09 - 03:24 PM:	#33
Seems to me that the distinction Searle is making is pretty straight forward. Take a look at your early example: "We intend to take a walk" (for two persons) can be analyzed as the conjunction "I intend to take a walk with you and you intend to take a walk with me." Each of us could take a walk alone. There is nothing in taking a walk that requires collective action. There are however certain sorts of acts which require collective action. Football, for example, requires two teams. Whereas going for a walk does not require collective action, playing football does. Your contention is something like: "We intend to play football" can be analyzed as the conjunction "I intend to play football with you and you intend to play football with me." This analysis hides the group intentionality that is explicit in playing football, but which is not explicit in going for a walk. That is, the utterance "I intend to play football" is quite distinct from "I intend to go for a walk", since the latter can be done alone, yet the former requires the participation of others. This is the point Searle is making. The argument, if there is one, is the observation that there are innumerable activities that by their very nature require group participation; that these activities cannot occur unless more than one person intends them to occur.
Davidson: We make maximum sense of the words and thoughts of others when we interpret in a way that optimizes agreement. Russel Morris: There's a meaning there, but the meaning there doesn't really mean a thing... Ned: Such is life

Banno
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Posted 11/06/09 - 03:28 PM:	#34
unenlightened wrote: Can you switch on a light by yourself? I usually make use of an electrician and an electricity generator, who in turn depend on coal miners and copper refiners etc, etc. If you intend to make an apple pie by yourself... This is a most excellent example, young fellow. Would that Searle had replied to this. For my part, it seems that you are correct, that even such simple activities as this require collective intent. So Searle is correct that collective intentionality lies at the very heart of society.
Davidson: We make maximum sense of the words and thoughts of others when we interpret in a way that optimizes agreement. Russel Morris: There's a meaning there, but the meaning there doesn't really mean a thing... Ned: Such is life

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Posted 11/06/09 - 03:43 PM:	#35
Might be best to look at it with 3 groups? There are a few actions which do not quite fit adequately in either of the two groups we have at the moment. Like the act of Reading something. (agreeably, the group/single aspect could be couched in terms of 'when it happened.) Maybe 'shopping' would fit in the 3rd group? ie. Football is somewhat problematic in that there are so few actions which are not dualitic. Like Breathing vs. Catching the ball.
"...There was a writer who asked why it was that when we find positive experiences we say that only the physical facts are real, but in negative experiences we believe that reality is subjective. He made an example of those who say that in birth only the pain is real, the joy a subjective point of view, but that in death it is the emotional loss that is the reality." - Tony Ballantyne, Recursion. _____________________________________________ Truth is want. - The internal state of matters. Truth is Need. - The external state of affairs.

Cadrache
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Posted 11/06/09 - 03:57 PM:	#36
In a way instead of arguing: A <-> B conclusion C. Footballs' system seperates group from individual intent. A ->AB <- B Where "AB" is 'catch the ball.'
"...There was a writer who asked why it was that when we find positive experiences we say that only the physical facts are real, but in negative experiences we believe that reality is subjective. He made an example of those who say that in birth only the pain is real, the joy a subjective point of view, but that in death it is the emotional loss that is the reality." - Tony Ballantyne, Recursion. _____________________________________________ Truth is want. - The internal state of matters. Truth is Need. - The external state of affairs.

vuic
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Posted 11/07/09 - 08:24 AM:

#37

Banno wrote:
Seems to me that the distinction Searle is making is pretty straight forward. Take a look at your early example:

"We intend to take a walk" can be analysed as "I intend to take a walk with you" and "You intend to take a walk with me".

Each of us could take a walk alone. There is nothing in taking a walk that requires collective action.

This is sorely beside the point of our discussion, because my example is about INTENTS and not the actual ACTIONS. (By the way, intending to take and actually taking a walk WITH YOU do require so-called collective intention/action, but this is simply to say that two persons individually intend/act in a certain way.)

The original question was: Is the above analysis adequate or not? Because if so, then it refutes Searle's claim that collective intentionality is a primitive phenomenon. It is quite remarkable that you don't answer that question. The only place you seem to come close to answering it is this:

Banno wrote:

This analysis hides the group intentionality...

If your complaint is that there is no mention of collective intentionality in the analysans, then I must say that is a characteristic of all reductive explanations. Why are you so surprised? What else did you expect in the first place? As you probably know, such explanations reduce complex phenomena to simple ones that are more familiiar to us. What's the problem with that?

Banno wrote:

That is, the utterance "I intend to play football" is quite distinct from "I intend to go for a walk", since the latter can be done alone, yet the former requires the participation of others.

You seem utterly confused. "I intend to play" football" is a statement about my INTENT, not about my actions, so it is nonsense to say it can be done alone or with others, because intents are not things that could possibly be DONE (in the sense of physical action we're talking about). However, If you mean that the activity of "walking" can be done alone, while "football" requires the participation of others, then you're clearly wrong in those cases when I want to walk WITH YOU (for reasons I already explained above). What you say is true only on the construal ""walking alone" can be done alone", but that's a complete truism (or better, it should be reformulated as "Walking alone can only be done alone"), and I have a hard time imagining someone to be so stupid as to argue against that commonplace.

Edited by vuic on 11/07/09 - 08:37 AM

Banno
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Posted 11/07/09 - 01:40 PM:	#38
One may lead a horse to water, but one cannot make him think. I do not know enough about you to pinpoint the problem you have with the obvious observation that one cannot intend to play football by oneself; that if one intends to play football, one intends to play it with others. vuic wrote: (By the way, intending to take and actually taking a walk WITH YOU do require so-called collective intention/action, but this is simply to say that two persons individually intend/act in a certain way.) Indeed, since the two people intending to act together.
Davidson: We make maximum sense of the words and thoughts of others when we interpret in a way that optimizes agreement. Russel Morris: There's a meaning there, but the meaning there doesn't really mean a thing... Ned: Such is life

Banno
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Posted 11/07/09 - 01:45 PM:	#39
(I have often found that the critics of Searle's work start by misunderstanding him. I guess this makes criticism much easier.)
Davidson: We make maximum sense of the words and thoughts of others when we interpret in a way that optimizes agreement. Russel Morris: There's a meaning there, but the meaning there doesn't really mean a thing... Ned: Such is life

vuic
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Posted 11/08/09 - 12:19 AM:	#40
Excuse me, but this is ridiculous. You're still evading the issue of the adequacy of the analysis given above, and fail to give any serious reasons for your opinion. There is nothing more to two people's intending to act together than two individual intentions that are related to each other in a certain way. That's why ANY state of affairst involving two or more people intending to act together can be adequately explained by referring to their individual intentions. There's no need to complicate the analysis by introducing some mysterious "collective" primitive (ie. irreducible) intentions like "We intend" to account for this, as Searle does with this sleight of hand in the book. All he does is wrap some commonplaces and truism in his pretentious language to make them see important when in fact they aren't at all. And the argument he gives against irreducibiity is a logical catastrophe indeed, as I have shown before. Judging by the poor standard of your argumentative strategy, Banno, you could be a very good discipline of Searle... Edited by vuic on 11/08/09 - 12:35 AM

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