Social Ontology

The main focus of this book about social ontology is collective intentionality (as expressed by joint intentions, wants, beliefs, and action) and group agency. The theory presented starts from the intuitive distinction between thinking and acting as a private person (“I-mode”) versus thinking and acting as a group member who identifies with the group and typically engages in “we-thinking’’ and joint acting (“we-mode”). The conceptually group-based we-mode framework expresses full-blown we-thinking and we-acting. A group with we-mode members is regarded as a functionally organized group agent whose intentional states are externally constructed normally by the group members. The group agent account has practical descriptive and explanatory value especially in the case of large organized groups (e.g. states and corporations) concerning group action as well as intergroup cooperation and conflict. The we-mode approach is extended to cover groups controlled by external authority such as is the case in many corporations. The book gives the first full-blown theory of group reasons in the sense of members’ participatory reasons as distinguished from a group agent’s reasons for action. Importantly, the book argues in terms of game-theoretical group-reasoning that the we-mode approach is both conceptually and rational-functionally different from what an individualistic approach is capable of even in group-friendly “pro-group I-mode” cases. Other central topics covered in the book are the ontological nature of group agents (such as corporations and states) and large groups in general, group solidarity, cooperation in groups, and relevant aspects of the history of collective intentionality. In all, the book accordingly offers major contributions to the study of social ontology from a philosophical perspective.