An Introduction to Collective Intentionality: In Action, Thought, and Society makes a cogent case for the field‘s importance, presents its central questions, and introduces the main topics of study.
An Introduction to Collective Intentionality: In Action, Thought, and Society makes a cogent case for the field's importance, presents its central questions, and introduces the main topics of study. Authors Marija Jankovic and Kirk Ludwig masterfully demonstrate why understanding collective intentions is essential for understanding social dynamics, from everyday cooperation to complex institutional structures.
Through clear, accessible prose, readers work through the central questions that define the discipline: How do groups form shared intentions? What distinguishes collective action from parallel individual behaviors? How do social institutions emerge from collective intentionality? While presenting their individualist position, the authors provide a balanced exploration of competing perspectives, ensuring readers gain a comprehensive understanding of ongoing debates and future research directions. Each theoretical concept is grounded in examples that illuminate the practical implications of collective intentionality in our daily lives.
Chapter summaries reinforce key concepts, while carefully curated further reading lists promote further exploration of collective intentionality. This book is perfect for students and scholars in philosophy, sociology, psychology, and anyone fascinated by the foundations of social reality.
1. Introduction Part I: Collective Action
2. The Landscape of Collective
Action
3. Plural Action Sentences
4. Singular Group Action vs. Plural Group
Action
5. Theories of Mind that Make Room for Group Agents
6. Singular Group
Action Sentences Summary of Part I Part II: Shared Intention
7. Shared
Intention
8. Content Accounts of Shared Intention
9. The Team Reasoning
Account
10. Shared Intention and Obligation Summary of Part II Part III:
Collective Belief and Cognition
11. Collective belief
12. Distributed and
Group Level Cognition Summary of Part III Part IV: Collective Intentionality
in Conventions, Social Rules, and Status Functions
13. Conventions
14. Status
functions: introduction
15. Constitutive rules and collective intentional
actions
16. Status Functions, Collective Acceptance, Constitutive Rules Redux
Summary of Part IV Part V: Collective Intentionality and Institutions
17.
What are Institutions?
18. Proxy Agency in Institutional Action
19.
Corporations and other Legal Persons
20. Collective Intentionality and
Communication Summary of Part V
21. Conclusion
Marija Jankovic is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Davidson College. Her areas of research are collective intentionality and philosophy of language. She is the editor of The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intentionality, with Kirk Ludwig (2018).
Kirk Ludwig is the Ruth N. Halls Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. He works in philosophy of mind and action, epistemology, philosophy of language, and metaphysics. He is the author, with Ernest Lepore, of Donald Davidson: Meaning, Truth, Language and Reality (2005) and Donald Davidsons Truth-Theoretic Semantics (2007). He is the author of From Individual to Plural Agency: Collective Action 1 (2016) and From Plural to Institutional Agency: Collective Action 2 (2017). He is editor of Donald Davidson (2003), A Companion to Donald Davidson, with Ernest Lepore (2013), and The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intentionality, with Marija Jankovic (2018).
