Language, Knowledge, and Representation Proceedings of the Sixth Int
Every two years since 1989, an international colloquium on cognitive science is held in Donostia - San Sebastian, attracting the most important researchers in that field. This volume is a collection of the invited papers to the Sixth International Colloqu
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PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES SERIES VOLUME99
Founded by Wilfrid S. Sellars and Keith Lehrer
Editor Keith Lehrer, University 0/Arizona, Tucson Associate Editor Stewart Cohen, Arizona State University, Tempe Board 0/ Consulting Editors Lynne Rudder Baker, University 0/ Massachusetts at Amherst Radu Bogdan, Tulane University, New Orleans Marian David, University 0/ Notre Dame Allan Gibbard, University 0/ Michigan Denise Meyerson, Macquarie University Fran
This sort of view, to my knowledge, is explicitly defended, in the recent philosophicalliterature on the matter, only by David Velleman: " ... distinct intentions held by different people can add to a singletoken of intention, jointly held." Velleman (1997), p. 31.
I think that "a single token ofintention, jointly held" is the best description of the graphie above. Velleman wants to show how two or more individuals can literally share an intention. This aim immediately raises serious questions like where is this collective intention instantiated? In whose mindlbrain? Not in
ON COLLECTIVE INTENTIONS
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mine, not in yours, but in ours? What does it mean? In answering these questions Velleman's proposal is-as, I think, any other along the same lines should be-irremediably led to the following dilemma: either (1) the term "intention" is no longer used for amental state but for some other thing that can be literally shared, or (2) methodological individualism is abandoned and there is room for collective minds and consciousness. Velleman is ready to admit both horns of the dilemma. Concerning the first, "I am not sure that intention is essentially mental. There are of course mental intentions, but perhaps there can also be oral or written intentions-just as there are not only mental but also oral or written assertions." Velleman (1997), p. 37.
Concerning the second, "One may want to insist on intention's being amental state, of course. But then I would be inclined to say that the existence of collective minds remains an open question." Velleman (1997), p. 38.
He then proposes to suspend judgment on both questions. But he is surely asking too much. 4 What we want is an account of collective action that, first and obviously, does not deny the existence of collective action, second, keeps the concept of intention as referring to amental state within the mental cause theory of action and, third, takes methodological individualism as a serious constraint. Abandoning any of these principles seems just question begging. Tuomela, Searle, Bratman, and Gilbert all say that they want their proposals to be consistent with methodological individualism. However, it is not always clear that, in fact, they are. In particular, Margaret Gilbert, with her account in terms of "plural subjects," seems often to imply the existence of a supermind. When she talks about shared intention, it is easy to understand that she is defending something similar to Velleman's concept of collective intention as a "a single token of intention, jointly held": " .. .it seems that there could be a shared int
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