Plural Action (eBook)

Hans Bernhard Schmid is a professor of Philosophy at the University of Basel, Switzerland.

Acknowledgements 6
Contents 8
List of Figures 11
Introduction 12
Part I Collective Intentionality Reconsidered 23
Chapter 1 Plural Action 24
1 The Plural Agent Problem 26
2 Collective Agents and Individual Autonomy 31
3 The Dogma of Motivational Autarky 35
4 Intentional Individualism 43
5 Plural Agency and Methodological Individualism 47
Chapter 2 Overcoming the ‘Cartesian Brainwash’ 50
6 Collective Intentionality Without Collectivity? 50
7 The Specter of the Group Mind 53
8 Collective Intentionality: Irreducible and Relational 63
Chapter 3 On Not Doing One’s Part 67
9 Joint Intention and Individual Participation 68
10 Participation and Normativity 71
11 The Structure of Dissidence 75
Chapter 4 Shared Feelings 79
12 Affective Intentionality: A Matter of Feelings 79
13 Shared Feelings: Content, Mode, and Subject 84
14 Individualism About Feelings 89
15 Phenomenological Fusion 97
Part II Collective Intentionality in the Social Sciences 104
Chapter 5 Social Identities in Experimental Economics 105
16 ‘Strong Reciprocity’ and Other Misnomers 106
17 Beyond Egoism and Altruism 109
18 The Role of Social Identities in Cooperation 113
19 ‘Nostrism’ 116
Chapter 6 Rationalizing Coordination 121
20 A Philosophical Scandal 121
21 The Principle of Coordination 124
22 “Team Thinking” 129
Chapter 7 Beyond Self-Goal Choice 136
23 Commitment: Two Opposing Views 137
24 Amartya Sen’s Critique of Self-Goal Choice 139
25 Commitment: A Third Account 143
Chapter 8 Lending a Hand 148
26 The Paradox of Altruistic Action 150
27 The Structure of Everyday Altruism 154
28 Another Solution to the Paradox 160
Part III Engaging the ‘Classics’: Four Critical Readings 169
Chapter 9 Martin Heidegger and the ‘Cartesian Brainwash’ 170
29 The Rift in Heidegger’s Concept of Everydayness 172
30 Conventionalism and Its Limits 175
31 Joint Action and the Social Dimension of Authenticity 182
32 Collective Intentionality: Heideggerian Inspirations 187
Chapter 10 ‘Volksgeist’ 196
33 The Collective Mind – Past and Present 197
34 Return of the Volksgeist? 200
35 Lazarus’ Volksgeist: Some Problems 204
Chapter 11 Evolution by Imitation 211
36 The Meme’s Eye View 212
37 Meme Ontology 216
38 Evolution by Association 220
39 Hypnosis Versus ‘Openness to the External World’ 224
Chapter 12 Consensus 229
40 The Problem of Interaction 231
41 Consensus 238
42 Consensus and Contingency 243
43 Consensus and Language 248
44 Consensus and Commitment 254
Bibliography 259
Index 271