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Collective intentionality

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Collective intentionality

Banno
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Posted 10/07/09 - 07:54 PM: Subject: Collective intentionality	#1
In various places you have suggested that there are two sort of intentionality. If I understand you correctly, the first, singular intentionality is the sort one has when one switches on a light, the intent of an individual, while the second, collective intentionality is that had by say a football team, and cannot be analysed into the intentions of particular individuals. I wonder what, if any, implications this might have for ethical theory? For example, are the individuals within a group responsible for the intentions of the group, if the group intent is not reducible to individual intent?
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

John Searle
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2 of 2 people found this post helpful Posted 10/23/09 - 03:32 PM:	#2
I think that people do plainly have collective intentions in that my individual intention to act as part of a team or as part of a musical group is a case where I intend to do what I am doing only as part of our doing what we are doing. This raises extremely complex questions about responsibility. I am responsible for some of my actions. In exactly what sense am I responsible for the behavior of groups of which I am a part? I do not think there is a simple answer to this question. But part of the answer has to do with the fact that I can only really be responsible for those actions of the group over which I can have some effective influence.

vuic
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Posted 10/26/09 - 07:01 AM:	#3
The above discussion makes no sense to me because it equivocates on the term 'intentionality'. As Professor Searle writes elsewhere, subjective or individual intentionality is the general term for various forms of by which the individual mind can be directed at or be about of objects and states of affairs in the world. Now, it follows that individual intentionality does not boil down to the particular mental act of intending but relates the individual mind to the world in general. But of course, once you start with this defintion for individual intentionality, then the notion of collective intentionality makes no sense because I cannot have anything in my own head that relates other people to the world. So to say the least, it is very confusing and seriously misleading to call the types of collective action referred above instances of 'intentionality'.

Banno
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Posted 10/26/09 - 12:58 PM:	#4
Why can't group intentionality relate a group to the world? "We are playing a game of football" is a statement about the intent of a group.
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

rigelrover
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Posted 10/26/09 - 01:19 PM:	#5
Banno wrote: Why can't group intentionality relate a group to the world? "We are playing a game of football" is a statement about the intent of a group. Rather: "We are going to play a game of football" The usage of the sense of 'intention' seems to succeed here. I agree.
I am more interested in questions than answers; dialog than dictation. If we can reasonably believe that there is not just a breach, but a fundamentally unclosable gap between the individual mind and the ultimate nature of the reality; the primordial thing in itself, then 'true' mystery does exist.

Banno
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Posted 10/26/09 - 06:09 PM:	#6
rigelrover wrote: Rather: "We are going to play a game of football" The usage of the sense of 'intention' seems to succeed here. I agree. Are you saying we can intend to play a game of football in the future, but that we cannot intend to playing one when we are actually on the field? What does changing the tense have to do with it?
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

rigelrover
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Posted 10/26/09 - 06:30 PM:	#7
Banno wrote: Are you saying we can intend to play a game of football in the future, but that we cannot intend to playing one when we are actually on the field? What does changing the tense have to do with it? You may be leading me on Banno, but what I mean is that (as it seems to me) one must intend to do what will follow in the next moment or not. I don't understand how we can mean that an agent can change anything, with intention, in any given moment. Of course this sounds a bit like Zeno's paradox for intention. Or Prof. Searles quandary about the origin of consciousness. I.e. where does intention start, if it starts at all? Edited by rigelrover on 10/26/09 - 07:10 PM. Reason: spelling
I am more interested in questions than answers; dialog than dictation. If we can reasonably believe that there is not just a breach, but a fundamentally unclosable gap between the individual mind and the ultimate nature of the reality; the primordial thing in itself, then 'true' mystery does exist.

vuic
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Posted 10/26/09 - 11:39 PM:	#8
"Why can"t group intentionality relate a group to the world?" It is plain to see why group intentionality is a contradiction in terms. If we are going to play football, then all you have is the individual intents of the members of a group (I intend to play, you intend to play etc.). There is no "group mind" over and above the individual minds. So it is silly to talk about group intentionality apart from the sum of individual's intents.

Banno
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Posted 10/27/09 - 12:30 AM:	#9
vuic wrote: If we are going to play football, then all you have is the individual intents of the members of a group (I intend to play, you intend to play etc.). There is no "group mind" over and above the individual minds. So it is silly to talk about group intentionality apart from the sum of individual's intents. Who said anything about a group mind? But can you play football by yourself? Searle wrote: I might be blocking the defensive end, but I am blocking only as part of our executing a pass play (Italics in original. Not exactly sure what this example means; I wish Professor Searle had developed a preference for examples from Cricket whist in England. Am I correct in assuming that one person cannot execute a pass play?)
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

unenlightened
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Posted 10/27/09 - 03:24 AM:	#10
Banno wrote: Who said anything about a group mind? But can you play football by yourself? 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...
...most of our actions are the result of the past, or according to a future ideal. That's not action, that is just conformity. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

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