Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T06:41:27.472Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Metaphysics of Practical Rationality: Intentional and Deontic Cognition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2021

PRESTON STOVALL
PRESTON STOVALL*
Affiliation:
UNIVERSITY OF HRADEC KRÁLOVÉpreston.stovall@uhk.cz
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Despite growing appreciation in recent decades of the importance of shared intentional mental states as a foundation for everything from divergences in primate evolution, to the institution of communal norms, to trends in the development of modernity as a sociopolitical phenomenon, we lack an adequate understanding of the relationship between individual and shared intentionality. At the same time, it is widely appreciated that deontic reasoning concerning what ought, may, and ought not be done is, like reasoning about our intentions, an exercise of practical rationality. Taking advantage of this fact, I use a plan-theoretic semantics for the deontic modalities as a basis for understanding individual and shared intentions. This results in a view that accords well with what we currently have reason to believe about the phylogenetic and ontogenetic development of norm psychology and shared intentionality in human beings, and where original intentionality can be understood in terms of the shared intentionality of a community.

Keywords

collective intentionalitydeontic modalitypractical rationality
Type
Article
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , Winter 2021 , pp. 549 - 568
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Philosophical Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Work on this essay was supported by the joint Lead-Agency research grant between the Austrian Science Foundation (FWF) and the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR), Inferentialism and Collective Intentionality, GF17-33808L.

References

Bartha, Paul. (2010) By Parallel Reasoning: The Construction and Evaluation of Analogical Arguments. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birch, Jonathan. (2019) ‘Joint Know-How.’ Philosophical Studies, 176, 3329–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandom, Robert B. (1994) Making It Explicit: Reasoning, Representing, and Discursive Commitment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Brandom, Robert B. (2019) A Spirit of Trust: A Reading of Hegel's ‘Phenomenology’. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bratman, Michael E. (2014) Shared Agency: A Planning Theory of Acting Together. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burgh, Gilbert, Field, Terri, and Freakley, Mark. (2006) Ethics and the Community of Inquiry: Education for Deliberative Democracy. South Melbourne: Thomson Social Science Press.Google Scholar
Butterfill, Stephen A. (2015) ‘Planning for Collective Agency’. In Misselhorn, Catrin (ed.), Collective Agency and Cooperation in Natural and Artificial Systems: Explanation, Implementation and Simulation (Cham: Springer International), 149–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butterfill, Stephen A. (2018) ‘Coordinating Joint Action’. In Jankovic, Marija and Ludwig, Kirk (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intentionality (New York: Routledge), 68–82.Google Scholar
Chant, Sara Rachel. (2018) ‘Collective Action and Agency’. In Jankovic, Marija and Ludwig, Kirk (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intentionality (New York: Routledge), 13–24.Google Scholar
Chudek, Maciej and Henrich, Joseph. (2011) ‘Culture–Gene Coevolution, Norm-Psychology and the Emergence of Human Prosociality’. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15, 218–226.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dreier, James. (2006) ‘Negation for Expressivists: A Collection of Problems with a Suggestion for their Solution’. In Shafer-Landau, Russ (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics. Vol. 1 (New York: Oxford University Press), 217–233.Google Scholar
Dreier, James. (2009) ‘Relativism (and Expressivism) and the Problem of Disagreement,’ Philosophical Perspectives, 23, 79–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fletcher, Grace E., Warneken, Felix, and Tomasello, Michael. (2012) ‘Differences in Cognitive Processes Underlying the Collaborative Activities of Children and Chimpanzees’. Cognitive Development, 27, 136–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gentner, Dedre. (1983) ‘Structure-Mapping: A Theoretical Framework for Analogy’. Cognitive Science, 7, 155–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gentner, Dedre, Holyoak, Keith J., and Kokinov, Boicho N., eds. (2001) The Analogical Mind: Perspectives from Cognitive Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibbard, Allan. (2003) Thinking How to Live. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Margaret. (1989) On Social Facts. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Margaret. (2000) Sociality and Responsibility: New Essays in Plural Subject Theory. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Margaret. (2014) Joint Commitment: How We Make the Social World. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Göckeritz, Susanne, Schmidt, Marco F. H., and Tomasello, Michael. (2014) ‘Young Children's Creation and Transmission of Social Norms’. Cognitive Development, 30, 81–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. (1977) Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated by Miller, A. V.. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. (1980) Gesammelte Werke, Bd. 9, Phänomenologie des Geistes. Edited by Bonsiepen, Wolfgang and Heede, Reinhard. Hamburg: Felix Meiner.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hesse, Mary. (1952) ‘Operational Definition and Analogy in Physical Theories’. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 2, 281–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hesse, Mary. (1966) Models and Analogies in Science. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Jankovic, Marija and Ludwig, Kirk, eds. (2018) The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intentionality. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. (1996). ‘Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)’. In Gregor, Mary J. (trans. and ed.), Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy (New York: Cambridge University Press), 37–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koons, Jeremy. (2019) The Ethics of Wilfrid Sellars. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
List, Christian, and Pettit, Philip. (2011) Group Agency: The Possibility, Design, and Status of Corporate Agents. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ludwig, Kirk. (2007) ‘Collective Intentional Behavior from the Standpoint of Semantics’. Noûs, 41, 355–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ludwig, Kirk. (2014) ‘The Ontology of Collective Action’. In Chant, Sara Rachel, Hindriks, Frank, and Preyer, Gerhard, From Individual to Collective Agency: New Essays (New York: Oxford University Press), 112–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ludwig, Kirk. (2016) From Individual to Plural Agency. Vol. 1, Collective Action. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ludwig, Kirk. (2018) ‘Actions and Events in Plural Discourse’. In Jankovic, Marija and Ludwig, Kirk (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intentionality (New York: Routledge), 476–88.Google Scholar
Miller, Kaarlo, and Tuomela, Raimo. (2014) ‘Collective Goals Analyzed’. In Chant, Sara Rachel, Hindriks, Frank, and Preyer, Gerhard (eds.), From Individual to Collective Agency: New Essays (New York: Oxford University Press), 34–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Seumas. (2014) ‘Review of Social Ontology: Collective Intentionality and Group Agents, by Raimo Tuomela’. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, April 20, 2014. https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/social-ontology-collective-intentionality-and-group-agents/.Google Scholar
Miller, Kaarlo, and Tuomela, Raimo. (2014) ‘Collective Goals Analyzed’. In Chant, Sara Rachel, Hindriks, Frank, and Preyer, Gerhard (eds.), From Individual to Collective Agency: New Essays (New York: Oxford University Press), 34–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pettit, Philip. (2003) ‘Groups with Minds of their Own’. In Schmitt, Frederick F. (ed.), Socializing Metaphysics: The Nature of Social Reality (New York: Rowman & Littlefield), 167–93.Google Scholar
Rakoczy, Hannes, Warneken, Felix, and Tomasello, Michael. (2008) ‘The Sources of Normativity: Young Children's Awareness of the Normative Structure of Games’. Developmental Psychology, 44, 875–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Redding, Paul. (2003) ‘Hegel and Peircean Abduction’. European Journal of Philosophy, 11, 295–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rizzolatti, Giacomo, and Sinigaglia, Corrado. (2010) ‘The Functional Role of the Parieto-Frontal Mirror Circuit: Interpretations and Misinterpretations’. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11, 264–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schmid, Hans Bernhard. (2013) ‘Shared Intentionality and the Origins of Human Communication’. In Salice, Alessandro (ed.), Intentionality (Munich: Philosophia-Verlag), 349–68.Google Scholar
Schmid, Hans Bernhard. (2018) ‘The Subject of “We Intend”’. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 17, 231–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmidt, Marco F. H., and Rakoczy, Hannes. (2018) ‘Developing an Understanding of Normativity’. In Newen, Albert, Bruin, Leon De, and Gallagher, Shaun (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of 4E Cognition (New York: Oxford University Press), 685–706.Google Scholar
Schmidt, Marco F. H., Rakoczy, Hannes, and Tomasello, Michael. (2013) ‘Young Children Understand and Defend the Entitlements of Others’. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 116, 930–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmitt, Frederick F., ed. (2003a) Socializing Metaphysics: The Nature of Social Reality. New York: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Schmitt, Frederick F. (2003b) ‘Joint Action: From Individualism to Supraindividualism’. In Schmitt, Frederick F. (ed.), Socializing Metaphysics: The Nature of Social Reality (New York: Rowman & Littlefield), 129–65.Google Scholar
Schmitz, Michael, Kobow, Beatrice, and Schmid, Hans Bernhard (eds.). (2013) The Background of Social Reality. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schweikard, David P, and Schmid, Hans Bernhard. (2020) ‘Collective Intentionality’. In Zalta, E. N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/collective-intentionality/.Google Scholar
Searle, John. (1995) The Construction of Social Reality. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Searle, John. (2010) Making the Social World: The Structure of Human Civilization. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sellars, Wilfrid. (1951) ‘Obligation and Motivation’. Philosophical Studies, 2, 21–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sellars, Wilfrid. (1963) ‘Imperatives, Intentions, and the Logic of “Ought”’. In Casteñeda, Hector-Neri and Nakhnikian, George (eds.), Morality and the Language of Conduct (Detroit: Wayne State University Press), 159–214.Google Scholar
Sellars, Wilfrid. (1966a) ‘“Ought” and Moral Principles’ (Unpublished lecture, February 14, 1966). Transcribed by Andrew Chrucky. http://www.ditext.com/sellars/omp.html.Google Scholar
Sellars, Wilfrid. (1966b) ‘Thought and Action’. In Lehrer, Keith (ed.), Freedom and Determinism (New York: Random House), 105–139.Google Scholar
Sellars, Wilfrid. (1967) ‘Form and Content in Ethical Theory’. 1967 Lindley Lecture, Department of Philosophy, University of Kansas. https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/handle/1808/12383.Google Scholar
Sellars, Wilfrid. [1968] (1992) Science and Metaphysics: Variations on Kantian Themes. Atascadero: Ridgeview.Google Scholar
Sellars, Wilfrid. (1976) ‘Volitions Re-affirmed’. In Brand, Myles and Walton, Douglas (eds.), Action Theory: Proceedings (Dordrecht: D. Reidel), 47–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silk, Alex. (2015) ‘How to Be an Ethical Expressivist’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 91, 47–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stovall, Preston. (2015) ‘Inference by Analogy and the Progress of Knowledge: From Reflection to Determination in Judgements of Natural Purpose’. British Journal of the History of Philosophy, 23, 681–709.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stovall, Preston. (2020) ‘Syllogistic Reasoning as a Ground for the Content of Judgment: A Line of Thought from Kant through Hegel to Peirce’. European Journal of Philosophy. Published ahead of print October 26, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.12609.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stovall, Preston. (2021a) ‘Normative Attitudes, Collective Intentionality, and Discursive Cognition’. In Townsend, Leo, Schmid, Hans Bernhard, and Stovall, Preston (eds.), The Social Institution of Discursive Norms: Historical, Naturalistic, and Pragmatic Perspectives (New York: Routledge), 138–176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stovall, Preston. (2021b) ‘Understanding What We Ought and Shall Do: A Hyperstate Semantics for Descriptive, Prescriptive, and Intentional Sentences’. In Koreň, Ladislav, Schmid, Hans Bernhard, Stovall, Preston, and Townsend, Leo (eds.), Groups, Norms, and Practices: Essays on Inferentialism and Collective Intentionality (Dordrecht: Springer), 215–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stovall, Preston. (forthcoming a) ‘Modelling Descriptive and Deontic Cognition as Two Modes of Relation between Mind and World’. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly.Google Scholar
Stovall, Preston. (forthcoming b) The Single-Minded Animal: Shared Intentionality, Normativity, and the Foundations of Discursive Cognition. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Strawson, Peter. F. 1962. ‘Freedom and Resentment’. Proceedings of the British Academy, 48, 1–25.Google Scholar
Tomasello, Michael. (2014) A Natural History of Human Thinking. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, Michael, Carpenter, Malinda, Call, Josep, Behne, Tanya, and Moll, Henrike. (2005) ‘Understanding and Sharing Intentions: The Origins of Cultural Cognition’. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28, 675–91.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tuomela, Raimo. (2007) The Philosophy of Sociality: The Shared Point of View. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toumela, Raimo. (2013) Social Ontology: Collective Intentionality and Group Agents. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tuomela, Raimo, and Miller, Kaarlo. (1988) ‘We-Intentions’. Philosophical Studies, 53, 367–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yalcin, Seth. (2012) ‘Bayesian Expressivism’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 112, 123–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yalcin, Seth. (2018) ‘Expressivism by Force’. 2018. In Fogal, Daniel, Harris, Danieal W., and Moss, Matt (eds.), New Work on Speech Acts (New York: Oxford University Press), 400–29.Google Scholar