COLLECTIVE INTENTIONALITY V

BACKGROUND TO COLLECTIVE INTENTIONALITY

Theory of Collective Intentionality

Collective joint mental states and activities of a group of people exhibit collective intentionality or ''aboutness''. The contents of those mental states and activities are shared by these people. Typical examples of collective intentionality are presented by joint intentions and mutual beliefs. However, the label ''collective intentionality'' in the present context is understood to cover not only phenomena of collective intentionality (e.g. joint intention and commitment, mutual belief, we-attitudes, collective acceptance and agreement, collective responsibility, and the like) but also collective action and social practices as well as social institutions and organisations.

In line with this broad understanding of the theory of collective intentionality, the Conference on Collective Intentionality V covers not only the theory of collective intentionality as a theory of joint and shared mental states, but also social ontology, philosophy of sociality, part of moral and political philosophy (especially the issue of collective responsibility) and at least parts of social epistemology, and the counterparts to these fields in the neighbouring social sciences (such as psychology, sociology, economics, and political science). Accordingly, such items of study as social interaction, unintended consequences of action, and--depending on one's philosophical views--social structures and the ''architecture of the social world'' are included too. Also the philosophical study of normative social structures, especially institutions, and the phenomena of communication are covered. Furthermore, the study of artificial societies can be included, and this relates the conference to problems in Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI).

International Conferences on Collective Intentionality

In 1999 Wolfgang Balzer (University of Munich) and Raimo Tuomela organised the first Workshop on Collective Intentionality for researchers interested in philosophical and theoretical problems related to collective intentionality, broadly understood. After this meeting that took place in Munich a Helsinki-based e-mail list of researchers interested in the topic was formed, a bibliography of the topic was prepared, and further meetings and activities were discussed. The second workshop, Collective Intentionality II, took place in 2000 in Leipzig, organised by Georg Meggle and Raimo Tuomela. The second meeting saw the birth of the international scientific committee that was formed to support the study of collective intentionality in general and the organisation of international conferences on collective intentionality in particular. Collective Intentionality III was held at EIPE (of Erasmus University) in Rotterdam in December 2002, where the main organisational burden was carried by Uskali Mäki and Frank Hindriks. The fourth meeting, Conference on Collective Intentionality IV, was organised in Siena in 2004, where the main organisers were Cristiano Castelfranchi and Luca Tummolini.

No printed proceedings were published from the first workshop, but Georg Meggle edited an anthology Social Facts & Collective Intentionality (Dr. Hänsel-Hohenhausen, 2002) based in part on the papers presented at the second meeting. Selected papers of Collective Intentionality III appeared in the journal Philosophical Explorations, and some of the contributions to Collective Intentionality IV will appear in a special issue of Cognitive Systems Research. All contributions to the Helsinki conference will be made available at the conference website and, resources permitting, published in a special conference proceedings. Moreover, the organising committee is planning to edit an anthology on the basis of selected conference papers.

Since 1999 the collective intentionality meetings have grown from intimate workshops concentrating on an emerging branch of analytic philosophy into conferences of internationally significant size that gather together philosophers, psychologists, economists, computer scientists and social theorists interested in the philosophical foundations of the social sciences. The Helsinki conference is expected to help to establish the theory of collective intentionality (widely construed) as a major approach to social scientific theorising.

Links:

• Collective Intentionality (The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
• Collective Intentionality Bibliography