Ontology.
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Quand’è che smettiamo di giocare ad un gioco?
Fellow: Jocelyn Benoist overview
Overview: La distinzione tra regole costitutive e regole regolative sembra corrispondere alla distinzione tra l'istituzione (la definizione) di un gioco e la sua regolamentazione a posteriori. Le regole costitutive instaurano [instaurent] un certo gioco, o un certo tipo di realtà (sociale). Le regole regolative stabiliscono [stipulent] a quali condizioni la nostra messa in atto di questo gioco, di questa realtà, sia corretta. Per prendere un esempio nello spirito di quelli proposti da John R. Searle, se un giocatore di scacchi inesperto pretende di aprire muovendo il suo pedone di tre caselle, e non di una o due, egli vìola le regole costitutive del gioco degli scacchi. Ciò significa che egli sta giocando forse a qualche cosa, ma non certo al gioco degli scacchi. In compenso, se il mio principiante, nella convinzione che sia meglio edificare, in primo luogo, una illusoria fortezza di pedoni attorno al suo re, ha trascurato di sviluppare i suoi pezzi, io potrei dirgli, dopo la sua scottante sconfitta: "Hai volato una regola fondamentale del gioco degli scacchi: bisogna sempre sviluppare i propri pezzi nell'apertura, e occupare il centro". In questo caso, la regola invocata è poco più che una massima prudenziale, il cui valore è del tutto relativo. Ne è prova il fatto che vi sono certe aperture che pure sono riconosciute dalla comunità di giocatori di scacchi, che contravvengono a questo genere di principi. Ma non è questo ciò che qui ci interessa. |
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Urban Artefacts and Their Social Roles: Towards an Ontology of Social Practices
Fellow: Stefano Borgo Authors, abstract, keywords
Authors: Alessia Calafiore, Guido Boella, Stefano Borgo, Nicola Guarino Abstract: Cities can be seen as systems of urban artefacts interacting with human activities. Since cities in this sense need to be organized and coordinated, convergences and divergences between the "planned" and the "lived" city have always been of paramount interest in urban planning. The increasing amount of geo big data and the growing impact of Internet of Things (IoT) in contemporary smart city is pushing toward a re-conceptualization of urban systems taking into consideration the complexity of human behaviors. This work contributes to this view by proposing an ontological analysis of urban artefacts and their roles, focusing in particular on the difference between social roles and functional roles through the prism of social practices. Keywords:urban artefact, ontology, social practice, urban planning |
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Towards socially-competent and culturally-adaptive artificial agents.
Expressive order, interactional disruptions and recovery strategies Fellow: Stefano Borgo authors, abstract, keywords
Authors: Chiara Bassetti, Enrico Blanzieri, Stefano Borgo, Sofia Marangon Abstract: The development of artificial agents for social interaction pushes to enrich robots with social skills and knowledge about (local) social norms. One possibility is to distinguish the expressive and the functional orders during a human-robot interaction. The overarching aim of this work is to set a framework to make the artificial agent socially-competent beyond dyadic interaction – interaction in varying multi-party social situations – and beyond individual-based user personalization, thereby enlarging the current conception of “culturally-adaptive”. The core idea is to provide the artificial agent with the capability to handle different kinds of interactional disruptions, and associated recovery strategies, in microsociology. The result is obtained by classifying functional and social disruptions, and by investigating the requirements a robot’s architecture should satisfy to exploit such knowledge. The paper also highlights how this level of competence is achieved by focusing on just three dimensions: (i) social capability, (ii) relational role, and (iii) proximity, leaving aside the further complexity of full-fledged human-human interactions. Without going into technical aspects, End-to-end Data-driven Architectures and Modular Architectures are discussed to evaluate the degree to which they can exploit this new set of social and cultural knowledge. Finally, a list of general requirements for such agents is proposed. Keywords: culture; disruption; expressive order; recovery; social interaction |
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The indispensability of the manifest image
Fellow: Mario De Caro abstract
Author: Mario De Caro Abstract: It is very contentious whether the features of the manifest image have a place in the world as it is described by natural science. For the advocates of strict (or scientific) naturalism, this is a serious problem, which has been labelled ‘placement problem’. In this light, some of them try to show that those features are reducible to scientifically acceptable ones. Others, instead, argue that the features of the manifest image are mere illusions and, consequently, have to be eliminated from our ontology. In brief, the two options that are open to strict naturalists for solving the placement problem are ontological reductionism and eliminativism. Other advocates of naturalist philosophy, however, claim that both these strategies fail and, consequently, opt for ‘mysterianism’, the view according to which we cannot give up the recalcitrant features of the manifest image even if we are not able to understand the ways (which certainly exist) in which they could be reduced to the scientific features. Mysterianism has the merit of facing the difficulties that whoever wants to explain reductively, or explain away, the features of the manifest image encounters. It is also a defeatist philosophical view, though, since it considers the most important philosophical problems as unsolvable mysteries. For this reason, I argue that mysterianism can also be taken as a reductio of strict naturalism, given its presumption that all phenomena are either explainable by the natural sciences or to be rejected as illusory. In this article, it is argued that the failures of reductionism, eliminativism and mysterianism should teach us that both the scientific image and the manifest image of the world are essential and mutually irreducible but not incompatible with each other. To support this claim, in the second part of the article, the case of free will is discussed. |
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Liberal naturalism: origins and prospects
Fellow: Mario De Caro AbStract
Scientific naturalists have proposed different strategies to solve the so-called “placement problem” – that is, how the features of the ordinary view should be conceived under the assumption that our legitimate ontology is entirely dictated by natural science. Liberal naturalists, however, tend to be very skeptical about these attempts and have proposed some promising ways of reconceptualizing the entire question. This article presents a genealogy of the placement problem, argues that the scientific naturalists’ attempts to solve it are deeply unsatisfying, and hints at some liberal naturalist proposals for dissolving it. |
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A priori of the Law and Values in the Social Ontology of Wilhelm Schapp and Adolf Reinach
Fellow: Francesca De Vecchi authors, abstract & keywords
Abstract: In my paper, I investigate the problem of whether, and how, in Schapp’s (Die neue Wissenschaft vom Recht. Eine phänomenologische Untersuchung) and Reinach’s (Die apriorischen Grundlagen des burgerlichen Rechts) theories of a priori structures of the law, values can be connected with the law in an a priori relation. I suggest that, ultimately, Schapp’s foundation of the law in the evaluations of values is not as such an a priori foundation, while Reinach’s eidetics of the law involves genuine a priori connections, but they solely concern the being of the social and legal entities and are not grounded in values. Nevertheless, I argue that Schapp’s theory of the a priori foundations of the law in values entails an analysis of the ontological status of values, of the sociality of values and of the sharing of values from which emerges an account of the existential relation between law and values that is very significant for social ontology. I point out that such account opens up a quite fruitful perspective on the existential foundation of the law, grounded on the essential tendency of human beings to enjoy values to the full. I underline that this perspective represents a completely new and compelling inquiry by social ontology into the existential quality of social entities and into the greater or lesser degrees of vitality, fullness, fairness, etc. of social entities. I suggest that this is a crucial point which has to be highlighted not only in order to do justice to Schapp, but also to devote greater attention to the needs of the Life-world in social ontology. Keywords: Values, A priori of the law, Social ontology, Eidetics, Existential foundation |
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Proxy social acts. A particular case of plural agency
Fellow: Francesca De Vecchi abstract & keywords
Abstract: I focus on proxy acts' plural agency and argue that it is a particular case of plural agency, irreducible to that of collective agency. I start from Reinach's phenomenological account of proxy acts, according to which they are an eidetic modification of social-speech acts. I point out that as social-speech acts, proxy acts are also spontaneous acts and at least second-degree position-takings; but I argue that, unlike social-speech acts, their agency is modified. Such modification involves different agents at different times, different degrees of authorship, and different extensions of efficacy. I conclude that proxy acts' plural agency is constituted by several layers of agency that are bound together in the temporally expanded unity of the proxy act as a whole. Keywords: Spontaneous-social-speech acts, Proxy acts, Plural agency and authorship, Intentionality as positionality, Eidetic modification |
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The intentionality and positionality of spontaneous acts
Fellow: Francesca De Vecchi abstract
Abstract: This chapter discusses Adolf Reinach’s account of agency and his phenomenological approach to agency. It shows that Reinach’s account of agency concerns intentional acts, rather than intentional bodily actions, and explains how it is grounded in a phenomenological account of intentional lived experiences that are characterized by different levels of positionality. The chapter argues that the sense of agency captured by Reinach’s account of spontaneous acts is a sense of “authorship” that ought to be sharply distinguished from a sense of ownership. It describes that the agency of social acts requires the involvement of at least two individuals and that they are position-takings of a second level, as spontaneous acts are, or even of a higher level. The specific contribution of Reinach’s work is the extension of that idea to social reality and the discovery of such material a priori in the social world. |
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Revisiting Searle on Deriving "Ought" from "Is"
Fellows: Paolo Di Lucia, Edoardo Fittipaldi abstract
Abstract: This book reconsiders the supposed impossibility of deriving "Ought" from "Is". John R. Searle’s 1964 article How to Derive "Ought " from "Is’’ sent shockwaves through the philosophical community by offering a straightforward counterexample to this claim of impossibility: from your promising something- and this is an "is" - it simply follows that you "ought" to do it. This volume opens with a brand new chapter from Searle who, in light of his subsequent philosophical developments, expounds the reasons for the validity of that derivation and its crucial significance for social ontology and moral philosophy. Then, in a fresh interview with the editors of this volume, Searle explores a range of topics including how his derivation relates to constitutive rules, and how he views Wittgenstein’s philosophy, deontic logic, and the rationality of action. The remainder of the volume is dedicated to a deep dive into Searle’s essay and its implications by international scholars with diverse backgrounds ranging from analytic philosophy, phenomenology, and logic, to moral philosophy and the philosophy and sociology of law. With thirteen original chapters, the contributors provide fresh and timely insights on hotly debated issues: the nature of "Ought"; the logical structure of the social world; and the possibility of deriving not only "Ought" from "Is", but "Is" from "Ought". |
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Deviation without Contradiction in Adolf Reinach’s Ontology
Fellow: Paolo Di Lucia abstract & keywords
Abstract: Is it possible to affirm the existence of eidetic a priori laws, if these laws can be contradicted by positive law propositions? How is it possible a deviation from a priori juridical propositions? These are the two questions to which the present paper “Deviation without contradiction in Adolf Reinach’s ontology” is devoted. The aim of the paper is to analyse the relations between a priori juridical propositions and propositions of positive law as investigated by Adolf Reinach. The Author presents and illustrates Adolf Reinach’s conception of conditioned a priori connections. Keywords: “A priori” juridical structures, positive law propositions, ontology, deviation, contradiction |
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Norm: What Is It? Ontological and Pragmatical Perspectives
Fellows: Paolo Di Lucia, Lorenzo Passerini Glazel |
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Recent Work on Normativity
Fellow: Stephen Finlay overview
Although only a recently introduced term of art, philosophical enquiry under the rubric of ‘normativity’ has quickly become a major industry. A date-range search of the Philosopher’s Index for titles with the word returns zero results before 1980, three results for the ‘80s, 76 results for the ‘90s and (to date) 218 results for the 2000s. Philosophical appeals to normativity are also exceptionally widespread. In addition to the subjects traditionally considered ‘normative’—ethics, practical reason, political and legal philosophy and epistemology—it is increasingly common for philosophers to maintain that normativity is essential in the analysis of subjects as diverse as truth, meaning, probability and psychological attitudes like belief. This article is therefore unavoidably selective and idiosyncratic in the issues and literature it addresses, focusing on some recent developments in metaethics on the nature of normativity. |
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Normativity and Concepts
Fellow: Hannah Ginsborg authors, abstract & keywords
Abstract: A number of philosophers, including Kant, Kripke, Boghossian, Gibbard and Brandom, can be read as endorsing the view that concepts are normative. I distinguish two versions of that view: a strong, non-naturalistic version which identifies concepts with norms or rules (Kant, Kripke), and a weaker version, compatible with naturalism, on which the normativity of concepts amounts only to their application’s being governed by norms or rules (Boghossian, Gibbard, Brandom). I consider a problem for the strong version: grasp of a rule seems to require grasp of the concepts which constitute the content of that rule, so how can we explain concept acquisition without falling into regress? I offer a Kantian response, on which grasp of a rule does not require antecedent grasp of concepts, but still involves the recognition of normativity in one’s rule-governed behavior. I distinguish the normativity of concepts, so understood, from the normativity associated with truth or warrant. Keywords: Concepts, normativity, rules, Kant, Kripke, Boghossian, Gibbard, Brandom |
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The Normativity of Nature
Fellow: Hannah Ginsborg authors, abstract & keywords
Abstract: The book consists of thirteen previously published essays, one new essay, and a new introduction. Collectively, the essays present a distinctive interpretation of Kant’s Critique of Judgement as an important contribution to Kant’s theory of cognition and as offering insights relevant to contemporary philosophy. The faculty of judgement, on this interpretation, is the capacity that human beings have to respond to the world in ways that incorporate an awareness of the normativity of those very responses, where the normativity is ‘primitive’ in the sense that it is not based on the prior recognition of a rule or principle. It is because we possess this capacity that our responses to the world are conceptual rather than merely discriminative, and stand in an intentional rather than a merely causal relation to the objects which occasion them. The essays develop and defend this view of judgement both on its own terms and by showing how it figures in the discussions of aesthetics and teleology which constitute most of the body of the Critique of Judgement. They address specific interpretive problems in Kant’s aesthetics, philosophy of biology, and theory of cognition, but also explore the relevance of Kant’s views to contemporary philosophical issues, in particular regarding aesthetic judgement, intentionality, normativity, biological functions, concept-acquisition, perceptual content, and the possibility of rule following and meaning. Keywords: Aesthetics, cognition, intentionality, judgement, Kant, meaning, philosophy of biology, primitive normativity, rule following, teleology |
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Why are there descriptive norms? Because we looked for them
Fellow: Chiara Lisciandra authors, abstract & keywords
Authors: Ryan Muldoon, Chiara Lisciandra, Stephan Hartmann Abstract: In this work, we present a mathematical model for the emergence of descriptive norms, where the individual decision problem is formalized with the standard Bayesian belief revision machinery. Previous work on the emergence of descriptive norms has relied on heuristic modeling. In this paper we show that with a Bayesian model we can provide a more general picture of the emergence of norms, which helps to motivate the assumptions made in heuristic models. In our model, the priors formalize the belief that a certain behavior is a regularity. The evidence is provided by other group members’ behavior and the likelihood by their reliability. We implement the model in a series of computer simulations and examine the group-level outcomes. We claim that domain-general belief revision helps explain why we look for regularities in social life in the first place. We argue that it is the disposition to look for regularities and react to them that generates descriptive norms. In our search for rules, we create them. Keywords: Descriptive norms, Norm emergence, Explanation, Social epistemology, Agent-based modeling |
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Measuring norms using social survey data
Fellow: Chiara Lisciandra authors, abstract & keywords
Authors: Juliette R. de Wit, Chiara Lisciandra Abstract: This paper proposes a novel measure of civic norm compliance. We combine the literature on norm compliance from institutional economics and social philosophy. Institutional economics draws on survey data to measure civic norms, whereas social philosophy offers a theoretical framework that proves fruitful when used to operationalize civic norms. This paper shows that significantly different results emerge when the operationalization of civic norms in institutional economics draws on the theoretical framework that social philosophy offers. Furthermore, this study is relevant for social philosophy too, as it shows the potential of survey data as a test-bed for philosophical theories of norm compliance. Keywords: Social norms, civic norms, measurement, social survey data |
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Corporeal Drawn Norms. An investigation of graphic normativity in the material world of everyday objects
Fellow: Giuseppe Lorini abstract & keywords
Abstract: Starting from the ontological question of norms, namely from the question “What do we talk about when we talk about norms?”, the author highlights the existence of thetic norms, that is, norms established through an act of normative production, which have not been formulated linguistically. Notably, the author focuses on drawn (or graphic) norms, that is those norms that do not arise from a linguistic formulation or from a linguistic representation, but from a graphic representation, from a drawing (for example, Ikea’s diagram instruction manuals and traffic signs). In conclusion, the author examines a particular set of drawn norms, corporeal drawn norms, and investigates their essentially deictic nature. Keywords: drawn norms, graphic norms, normative drawnings, normativity, non-verbal norms, thetic norms, corporeal norms, deicticity |
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Ruling without Rules: Not Only Nudges. Regulation beyond Normativity
Fellows: Giuseppe Lorini, Stefano Moroni abstract & keywords
Abstract: Often, when a problem arises, someone immediately declares: “There’s a regulatory gap to plug. What we need is a new rule.” As if everything could be solved with a new regulation. And, when we think of a regulation that can fix things, generally what we have in mind is a verbal – preferably written – regulation. There are two aspects we wish to highlight here. Firstly, behaviour can be regulated not only with verbal norms but also with non-verbal norms. Secondly, behaviour may even be regulated without any specific rule: this article is dedicated to this fascinating regulatory phenomenon. Keywords: regulation, normativity, nudge, deontic artifacts, ruling without rules |
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How to make norms with drawings: An investigation of normativity beyond the realm of words
Fellows: Giuseppe Lorini, Stefano Moroni abstract & keywords
Abstract: A widespread opinion holds that norms and codes of conduct as such can only be established via words, that is, in some lexical form. This perspective can be criticized: some norms produced by human acts are not word-based at all. For example, many norms are actually conveyed through graphics (e. g. road signs and land-use maps), sounds (e. g. the referee’s whistle), a silent gesture (the traffic warden’s signal to halt). In this article, we will focus on the norms that are created by means of drawings and can be termed “drawn norms” or “graphical norms.” Specifically, we will inquire into the phenomenon of graphical norms with particular regard to traffic signs and land-use plans, and we will discuss the philosophical and legal problems to which these phenomena give rise. Keywords: normativity, graphical norms, drawn norms, verbal norms, traffic signs, urban plans |
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Deontic artifacts. Investigating the normativity of objects
Fellows: Giuseppe Lorini, Stefano Moroni, Olimpia Giuliana Loddo abstract & keywords
Abstract: Since the middle of the last century, normative language has been much studied. In particular, the normative function performed by certain sentences and by certain speech acts has been investigated in depth. Still, the normative function performed by certain physical artifacts designed and built to regulate human behaviors has not yet been thoroughly investigated. We propose to call this specific type of artifacts with normative intent ‘deontic artifacts’. This article aims to investigate this normative phenomenon that is so widespread in our daily reality, but so often forgotten by scholars of norms and normativity. Keywords: Normativity, artifacts, traffic signs, deontology, deontic reasoning |
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Rule‐free regulation: Exploring regulation ‘without rules’ and apart from ‘deontic categories’
Fellows: Giuseppe Lorini, Stefano Moroni abstract & keywords
Abstract: Regulation can occur “with (specific) rules/norms” or “without (specific) rules/norms”. Numerous studies have been devoted to the first option. To the point where “regulation” and “rules” have often been seen to coincide in some academic research, and also in everyday ways of thinking. We deal with the second option in this article: regulation without rules/norms. Namely, a type of regulation by which it is intended to influence others' behaviour without recourse to rules/ norms, and without directly altering the “normative environment”. Keywords: Deontic artifacts, regulation, ruling without rules, normativity, nudge |
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Non‐Propositional Regulation
Fellows: Giuseppe Lorini, Stefano Moroni abstract
Abstract: When thinking about how human behaviour is regulated, one generallyimagines a regulation consisting of norms linguistically expressed insentences: that is, “sentential deontic regulation”. However, this notion of regulation is reductive because there are (non-deontic and) non-sentential forms of regulation. In this article, we do not restrict ourinvestigation to (non-deontic and) non-sentential forms of regulation; weexamine whether there are forms of (non-deontic) regulation that areeven not propositional. In this regard, we advance the hypothesis thatthere are indeed cases of “non-propositional regulation”: that is,regulation that does not need propositions and propositional contents. |
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Rules without Regulation and Regulation without Rules
Fellows: Giuseppe Lorini, Stefano Moroni Abstract
In everyday discourse, and also in the academic literature, the expressions “regulatory interventions” (i.e. interventions intended to regulate behaviours) and “normative interventions” (i.e. interventions which set norms/rules) are usually assumed to be synonymous. From this perspective, any regulatory intervention is also normative, and vice versa. This article investigates the relationship between regulation and rules/norms in order to verify whether the “regulatory” and the “normative” aspects are intrinsically and essentially connected, as is usually thought (on the assumption that there is no regulation without rules and no rules without regulation). |
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Drawn norms: The example of traffic signs
Fellow: Patrick Maynard |
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Rules: a Toy Box
Fellow: Patrick Maynard abstract & keywords
Abstract: “Induction provides a path to first principles” (Aristotle): so we approach our topic by sampling three distinct sorts of data—rules in actions as exemplified in games; rules as directives for manufacture; as laws not only for maintaining order among people but also relations between citizens and governments—finding in each case the parts that nonverbal expressions of rules play. While words are essential to formulating constitutive rules defining sporting games, they seem less important than emulation for recreational uses. They drop out in children’s games of make-believe, which developmental psychology shows to be crucial to early development, since ours is a naturally rule making and following species. Industrial artifacts, thereby the modern world, depend on graphic systems, here exemplified by origami notation, which feature isolation and sequence in simultaneity, lacked by words. Such notations also exhibit a five-order pattern of intentionality, whose importance is demonstrated by communication breakdowns in road signage, undermining civic life. Keywords: rules, directive signs, road signs, artifacts, games, make-believe, child development, orders of intentionality, civility, Vygotsky, Walton, Tomasello, Hobson, Ardizonne, origami |
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Persons and Acts Collective and Social. From Ontology to Politics
Fellow: Kevin Mulligan abstract & keywords
Abstract: This paper orchestrates a confrontation between the social ontology, social and political philosophy of Searle and the views on these matters of the earliest phenomenologists. According to Searle, social objects depend on declarations and on collective acceptance or recognition of the results of declarations. After first (§2) drawing attention to some distinctions and claims which go back to Reinach and which will be important in what follows, I then (§3) consider what Reinach and Searle have to say about declarations. Since collective acceptance is a type of collective intentionality I examine what Searle and the phenomenologists have to say about collective intentionality and the subjects or bearers of this type of intentionality (§4). I then look at the relation between states and social acts (§5), the relations between what Searle calls deontic powers and Reinach jural powers and some possible roles of such powers (§6) and conclude with a brief sketch of the role of primitive certainty in social ontology (§7). Keywords: Social Acts, Collective intentionality, Deontic powers, Social ontology, Phenomenology |
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Artefacts as Social Things: Design-Based Approach to Normativity
Fellow: Michał Piekarski abstract & keywords
Abstract: In these reflections, we want to prove a thesis whereby normativity of rules and norms may be linked to the domain of artefacts which we understand as social things. We claim that some norms and rules are situated in human socio-material ecosystems especially when it comes to the role played by affordances. The thesis advanced in this article will also enable us to indicate one of the potential interpretations of Wittgenstein’s ‘forms of life’ concept, demonstrating that some solutions suggested by the author of Philosophical Investigations are still relevant today. We will relate the issue of the normativity of artefacts to the problem of rule recognition which Wittgenstein also raises in some of his later studies. We will demonstrate that the problem of normativity recognition is linked to (1) relational properties of objects, that is affordances; (2) structured nature of the world of human communities; and (3) the ability to recognise affordances related to the ability to create predictions about future states of affairs. The analyses presented herein will show that it is possible to link the perspectives of cognitive ecology, design practice and philosophical analyses focused on the problem of normativity. Keywords: Wittgenstein, normativity, artefacts, form of life, affordance |
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Sollen: il dover essere è un oggetto? Le risposte di Meinong e Veber
Fellow: Venanzio Raspa abstract & keywords
Abstract: The paper examines Meinong’s and Veber’s conceptions of “ought”.Meinong’s theory of ought is a part of his value theory. In Über emotionale Präsentation the ought is a property of being, which cannot be viewed as separated from a desiring subject. The ought is an ideal object of higher order; it concerns neither factuality nor non-factuality, but subfactuality, that is the realm of possibility. In Die Natur des Sollens, Veber proposes a theory of ought, which is grounded on Meinongian concepts. The ought is the object of a volition, it is a genuine object, even though ideal. Finally,the differences between Veber’s and Meinong’s conceptions of the ought are portrayed. Keywords: ought, value, Meinong, Veber, emotions |
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The Limits of Realism in the Philosophy of Social Science
Fellow: David-Hillel Ruben abstract & keywords
Abstract: There is an old Russian proverb, quoted in Vladimir Medem’s autobiography, that says: “an individual in Russia was composed of three parts: a body, a soul, and a passport”. It isn’t only that there are these three aspects of a person, but moreover that somehow the three are connected or related in some way. I assume that identity theories and reductive strategies about their relationship fail and I remind the reader why this is so. The mind cannot be reduced to body and the social (and this includes social action) cannot be reduced to what goes on in the minds of individuals and to their non-social actions, even when physical environment is added to the allegedly reducing base. I canvass two alternatives: supervenience and constructivism. Supervenience turns out to be too “brute” a relation to account for the mind-body-social relationships. It is essentially a co-variance relation and even if the social supervenes on the non-social, or the mental on the physical, supervenience leaves that co-variance inexplicable and mysterious. I ask whether constructivist solutions could explain the co-variance (I look specifically at the work of John Searle) and raise some issues with regard to their ability to explain these relationships. In particular, I focus on Searle’s use of the idea of constitutive rules and on his reliance on the ideas of agreement and consent to such rules. Keywords: Social World, Mental Life, Constitutive Rule, Global Supervenience, Political Obligation |
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Multifunctional Artefacts and Collocation
Fellow: David-Hillel Ruben abstract & keywords
Abstract: There appear to be multifunctional artefacts of a type such that none of their functions can be attributed only to some proper part of the artefact. I use two examples of allegedly multifunctional artefacts of this kind in what follows, one due to Lynne Rudder Baker (aspirin) and another of my own (a spork). The two examples are meant to make the same point. I discuss her aspirin example, since its discussion has entered the literature, but without its being dealt with satisfactorily. My example is, I believe, more intuitive than that of aspirin, which Baker introduced in her response to a challenge to her views, and so I will mostly rely on my example of a spork, especially at the end of the paper, to make my case. I argue that in at least those two cases, if the standard arguments for distinguishing between an object and what constitutes it are sound, an argument showing that what we might have taken to be a single multifunctional object is in fact a case of multiple single function artefacts which collocate. Or almost. There is one further assumption needed for these cases, beyond what the constitution cases require, and I produce reasons for accepting that assumption. Keywords: Artefacts; Collocation; Constitution; Lynne Rudder Baker |
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Normativity with a Human Face: Placing Intentional Norms
Fellow: Glenda Satne abstract
Abstract: Many philosophers identify normativity as the distinctive mark of intentionality. Among them, John McDowell has underscored the need to overcome any form of dualism between reason and nature in order to properly account for the way in which such norms can be about the world around us, dubbing this project a "rehabilitation of empiricism." Steven Crowell argues that McDowell's notion of experience falls short in accounting for the way in which we can experience the world as normative and is hence insufficient for rehabilitating empiricism in McDowell's sense. In this chapter, we will contend that Crowell's attempt to provide a phenomenological account of intentionality goes quite far in the right direction but is nevertheless incomplete. If in fact Crowell succeeds in placing norms in nature through his phenomenological account of perceptual experience, he still shares with McDowell the idea that intentionality proper is to be identified with full-fledged normative contentful capacities. We argue that this commitment leads him to reject the possibility of accounting for the way in which intentional agents are themselves placed in nature. We will claim that placing intentional agents in nature is not only possible, but also necessary for bringing Crowell's and McDowell's respective projects of rehabilitating empiricism to completion. Finally, we sketch a strategy for successfully conducting this task. |
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Shared Intentionality and the Cooperative Evolutionary Hypotesis
Fellows: Glenda Satne, Alessandro Salice abstract & keywords
Abstract: One important application of theories of collective intentionality concerns the evolution of social understanding and even of human thinking (Tomasello M, A natural history of human thinking, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2014). A promising idea behind this approach is the Cooperative Evolutionary Hypothesis (CEH), namely, the idea that humans’ capacity for social cooperation is at the heart of their ability to understand others’ mental states and behavior, leading to an explanation of how humans came to share thoughts and language. However, some of the most popular defenses of CEH face important problems. In this paper, we take Tomasello’s account (J Soc Ontol 2(1):117–123, 2016); A natural history of human thinking. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2014; Origins of human communication. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2008) as a leading example of the CEH which faces such insurmountable problems. In particular, we argue that Tomasello’s analysis of cooperation and spontaneous help is problematic. We locate a source of such issues in the assumption that the right account of joint action and simple forms of shared intentionality is that which is offered by Bratman’s theory of shared intentions. The second part of the article proposes and defends an alternative framework for understanding shared intentionality that can help substantiate CEH. Keywords: Cooperation, Collective intentionality, Evolution. |
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On Credentials
Fellows: Barry Smith, Olimpia Giuliana Loddo, Giuseppe Lorini abstract & keywords
Abstract: Credentials play an important role in all modern societies, but the analysis of their nature and function has thus far been neglected by social philosophers. We present a view according to which the defining function of credentials is to certify the identity and the institutional status (including certain rights) of individuals. More importantly, credentials enable rights-holders to exercise their rights, so that for a particular right to be exercisable the right-holder should possess, carry and sometimes show to an authority a document of a specific kind. Driving licenses, identity cards, passports, boarding passes, library passes, credit cards, ATM cards, health insurance cards are all examples of credentials in this sense. Credentials have in every case a bearer, and the bearer should be able to carry them easily on his or her person. Credentials should also be inspectable – not least because credentials can be forged. The authors analyze several historical and contemporary examples of credentials, focusing on the credentials carried by the pilgrims of the Way of Saint James. Keywords: credentials, document acts, deontic powers, Way of Saint James, institutional objects, status indicators |
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Un concept normatif de l’intentionalité ?
Fellow: Jocelyn Benoist |
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On the Good Use of Structure: Descriptivism versus Normativism
Fellow: Jocelyn Benoist abstract
Abstract: In the first place, the author tries to shed some light on the concept of structure by unveiling its origin and its being double-sided in the phenomenological concept of the a priori (analytic and synthetic) as it is taken back within some contemporary Analytic ontologies. Then, he discusses the nature of the a prioricity of the structure: is it normative or ontological? He upholds the necessity to have a mere ontological theoretical approach of structures. |
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Collective Intentions and Collective Intentionality
Fellow: Leo Zaibert abstract
Abstract: John Searle believes that collective intentions are crucial to his philosophy, but he is yet to present a coherent account of these entities. No account whatsoever of collective intentions is presented in the book where Searle needs them the most (The Construction of Social Reality), or, for that matter, in any other of Searle's major books. The only account, and a defective one at that (so I argue), is found in a short, somewhat obscure article entitled “Collective Intentions and Actions,” but in fact what Searle presents there is, at best, an account of collective actions, not of collective intentions. In light of Searle own ground‐breaking work in the philosophy of mind, and in particular in light of his far‐reaching analyses showing how intentions differ from related mental states, I argue that collective intentions are not consistent with Searle's philosophy of mind. |