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    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Social Ontology: Collective Intentionality and Group Agents

Social Ontology: Collective Intentionality and Group Agents

Tuomela, Raimo

Paperback

PhilosophyGeneral Sociology

ISBN10: 019061238X
ISBN13: 9780190612382
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: May 15 2016
Pages: 328
Weight: 0.88
Height: 0.90 Width: 6.10 Depth: 9.10
Language: English
Social ontology, in its broadest sense, is the study of the nature of social reality, including collective intentions and agency. The starting point of Tuomela's account of collective intentionality is the distinction between thinking and acting as a private person (I-mode) versus as a we-thinking group member (we-mode). The we-mode approach is based on social groups consisting of persons, which may range from simple task groups consisting of a few persons to corporations and even to political states. Tuomela extends the we-mode notion to cover groups controlled by external authority. Thus, for instance, cooperation and attitude formation are studied in cases where the participants are governed from above as in many corporations.

The volume goes on to present a systematic philosophical theory related to the collectivism-versus-individualism debate in the social sciences. A weak version of collectivism (the we-mode approach) depends on group-based collective intentionality. We-mode collective intentionality is not individualistically reducible and is needed to complement individualistic accounts in social scientific theorizing. The we-mode approach is used in the book to account for collective intention and action, cooperation, group attitudes, and social practices and institutions, as well as group solidarity. Tuomela establishes the first complete theory of group reasons (in the sense of members' reasons for participation in group activities). The book argues in terms of game-theoretical group-reasoning that the kind of weak collectivism that the we-mode approach involves is both conceptually and rational-functionally different from what an individualistic approach (pro-group I-mode approach) entails.

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