Collective intentionality

Collective intentionality demonstrated in a human formation

In the philosophy of mind, collective intentionality characterizes the intentionality that occurs when two or more individuals undertake a task together. Examples include two individuals carrying a heavy table up a flight of stairs or dancing a tango.

This phenomenon is approached from psychological and normative perspectives, among others. Prominent philosophers working in the psychological manner are Raimo Tuomela, Kaarlo Miller, John R. Searle, and Michael E. Bratman. Margaret Gilbert takes a normative approach dealing specifically with group formation. David Velleman is also concerned with how groups are formed, but his account lacks the normative element present in Gilbert.

The notion that collectives are capable of forming intentions can be found, whether implicitly or explicitly, in literature going back thousands of years. For example, ancient texts such as Plato's Republic[1] discuss the cooperative determination of laws and social order by the group composed of society as a whole. This theme was later expanded into social contract theory by Enlightenment-era philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes[2] and John Locke.[3] In the 20th century, the likes of Wilfrid Sellars[4] and Anthony Quinton[5] noted the existence of "We-Intentions" amid broader discussion of the concept of intentionality, and thus laid the groundwork for the focused philosophical analysis of collective intentionality that began in the late 1980s.

This philosophical notion is closely related to the psychological construct of Shared intentionality. The critical difference between the two is that Collective intentionality implies aware intentions that occur when two or more individuals undertake a task together. In contrast, the term Shared intentionality describes unaware processes in mother-child dyads during social learning when very young organisms only manifest simple reflexes and do not possess abstract thinking.[6][7][8] This difference between the two terms may mean two different neurophysiological processes underlying their appearance.[9]

  1. ^ Allen, R.E. 2006. Plato, The Republic. New Haven: Yale University Press.
  2. ^ Shapiro, Ian. 2010. Leviathan: Or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Common-Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill. New Haven: Yale University Press.
  3. ^ Laslett, Peter. 1988. Two Treatises of Government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  4. ^ Sellars, Wilfrid. 1963. "Imperatives, Intentions, and the Logic of 'Ought," Morality and the Language of Conduct. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
  5. ^ Quinton, Anthony. 1975. "Social Objects." Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Vol. 75, 67–87.
  6. ^ Tomasello, M. Becoming Human: A Theory of Ontogeny. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; 2019.
  7. ^ Val Danilov I. and Mihailova S. 2022. "A New Perspective on Assessing Cognition in Children through Estimating Shared Intentionality." Journal of Intelligence10: 21. https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence10020021
  8. ^ Val Danilov I. 2023. "Theoretical Grounds of Shared Intentionality for Neuroscience in Developing Bioengineering Systems." OBM Neurobiology 2023; 7(1): 156; doi:10.21926/obm.neurobiol.2301156
  9. ^ Val Danilov I. 2023. "Low-Frequency Oscillations for Nonlocal Neuronal Coupling in Shared Intentionality Before and After Birth: Toward the Origin of Perception." OBM Neurobiology 2023; 7(4):192; doi:10.21926/obm.neurobiol.2304192.https://www.lidsen.com/journals/neurobiology/neurobiology-07-04-192