Hybrid collective intentionality
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Hybrid collective intentionality Thomas Brouwer1
· Roberta Ferrario2
· Daniele Porello2
Received: 21 June 2019 / Accepted: 26 October 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract The theory of collective agency and intentionality is a flourishing field of research, and our understanding of these phenomena has arguably increased greatly in recent years. Extant theories, however, are still ill-equipped to explain certain aspects of collective intentionality. In this article we draw attention to two such underappreciated (and intertwined) aspects: the failure of the intentional states of collectives to supervene on the intentional states of their members, and the role of non-human factors in collective agency and intentionality (‘hybrid’ collective intentionality). We propose a theory of collective intentionality which builds on the ‘interpretationist’ tradition in metasemantics and the philosophy of mind as initiated by David Lewis and recently developed further by Robbie Williams. The collective-level analogue of interpretationism turns out to look different in some ways from the individual-level theory, but is well-suited to accommodating phenomena such as hybrid collective intentionality. Complemented with Kit Fine’s theory of variable embodiment, such a theory also provides a diachronic account of intentional collectives. Keywords Collective intentionality · Interpretationism · Variable embodiment · Structure
1 Introduction It is not uncommon in everyday thought and talk to ascribe intentionality, and more specifically propositional attitudes, to collectives. While some have downplayed the significance of such attributions, regarding it as loose talk (e.g. Quinton 1975) it has become gradually more common among philosophers to take such ascriptions seriously, treating collective agents as genuine entities which genuinely have propositional attitudes. That is not to say that they are inclined to put the intentionality that collectives
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Thomas Brouwer [email protected]
1
School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
2
Laboratory for Applied Ontology, ISTC-CNR, Trento, Italy
123
Synthese
exhibit on a par with that exhibited by individuals. The default approach is to treat the intentional states of collectives as deriving in some manner from the intentional states that their members enjoy: collective intentionality is a secondary kind of intentionality built upon the primary intentionality of individuals. This is not an implausible thought–if the intentionality of collectives doesn’t derive from the intentionality of individual members, then where does it come from? However, we will argue that this thought is often developed into an approach to collective intentionality which is too narrow to accommodate the full variety of collective intentionality phenomena. We must take a somewhat broader and somewhat more subtle view of how collectives come to exhibit intentionality. In this paper we set out such a view. We will start by explaining the type of model of collective
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