Collective self-awareness and collective self-constitution
Leo Townsend
A number of philosophers have claimed that some form of ‘collective self-awareness’ is
integral to the process through which a group agent constitutes itself. This paper is about
how collective self-awareness must be construed in order for such claims to be plausible.
Focusing specifically on Philip Pettit’s theory of group agency I argue that when collective
self-awareness is understood as a group’s capacity for inner ‘reflection’ – for accessing its
own mental states – this cannot be part of the process of collective self-constitution.
Nevertheless, there is another way of construing collective self-awareness, as ‘practical selfknowledge’, which might vindicate the claim that collective self-awareness is integral to
collective self-constitution.
Collective self-awareness as constitutive of collectivity:
Towards a subject mode account
Michael Schmitz
I propose to explain collectivity in terms of the kind of awareness the subject of a collective
state or status has of its position – such as belief, or intention – vis-à-vis the object it is
directed at and thus of itself. I argue that it’s awareness of ourselves as subjects rather than
as objects that is crucial here for the pre-conceptual level of joint attention and action, the
conceptual level of collective intention and belief and the documental level of institutional
reality, where we take up roles such as being a clerk, judge, or professor. For example, a
professor is not primarily a professor because others believe that she is one, but because
she takes theoretical and practical positions from the vantage point of this role, and because
others also represent and accept her in that role from the vantage points of their roles as
her students, colleagues, administrators, and so on. I show how this account can help us to
better understand how we can create collectivity by representing it: by taking up positions
as members of collectives, we become those members. For example, by agreeing jointly to
go for a walk, we become the collective subject of this commitment.
Intentional Transaction
Sebastian Rödl
The second person is often set in contrast to the first person. And there is a contrast. It does
not reside in a difference of what is thought as I from what is thought as you. For that is not
different. The contrast is that of monadic and dyadic predication, action and transaction. It is
the contrast, not of I and You, but of I and I-You. The second person does not add a You to
an I. It divides the I and makes it a relation.
Pre-reflective self-consciousness and experiential selfhood:
Singular and plural?
Dan Zahavi
In my presentation, I will briefly outline the motivations behind the introduction of the
notions of pre-reflective self-consciousness and experiential selfhood and then discuss to
what extent they can meaningfully be transposed from the first-person singular to the firstperson plural case. I will especially focus on the question of whether the former notions are
compatible with the so-called token identity view of emotional sharing.
We-experiences and common knowledge
Olle Blomberg
In a recent paper, Zahavi (2015) gives a characterisation of “we-experiences”, informed by
Schutz’s (1953, 1967) discussion of the “pure We-relationship”. According to both Zahavi
and Schutz, taking part in a we-experience, such as enjoying a movie together or sharing the
excitement of encountering a hedgehog, involves having a kind of third-order reciprocal
awareness. By appeal to both the phenomenology and functional role of we-experiences, I
argue that that this is inadequate: We need to appeal to an interpersonal state of ‘common
knowledge’, in which an infinite hierarchy of higher-order awareness is implicit (Lewis 1969).
I then argue that common knowledge can play part of the role that Schmid (2014) assigns to
the notion of “plural pre-reflective self-awareness” and Schutz (1953) assigns to the pure
We-relationship.
Socializing the self: Using Plural Self-Awareness against the Anti-Social Bias
Judith Martens
I will look at the “anti-social bias”: the assumption that we should start from individual
minds, as this idea seems to make an account of collective intentions and joint action more
complicated than I believe necessary. I will argue that, when starting from a less
individualistic perspective, one need not accept a group mind to be able to argue for
collective intention.
In order to argue in this direction I will use Schmid’s notion on plural self-awareness, and the
idea of common intention by Baier, extended by Raczaszek-Leonardi’s ideas on social
affordances. These two can give us a richer understanding of collective intentionality.
Collective Self-Consciousness and the Duty to Know What We’re Doing Together
Hans Bernhard Schmid
Abstract: In order to be morally responsible for an action or omission, it has to be true that
we should know that the action or omission in question is ours. The relevant way in which
we know that an action is ours is what is known under labels such as pre-reflective selfawareness, first-personal self-consciousness, de se knowledge, or non-observational selfknowledge. This paper argues that such self-knowledge comes in a distributive (singular) and
a collective (plural) form. Plural self-knowledge is the feature in virtue of which we,
together, can be first-person plurally aware of an action as ours, collectively. It is argued in
this paper that if we are collectively morally responsible for an action or omission, we should
be plurally self-aware of that action or omission as ours, collectively. The paper further
examines some of the differences between the individual and the plural form of selfknowledge, and argues that while lack of singular self-knowledge is relatively easy to
overcome, the currently prevalent conception of agency and the social structure by which it
is supported severely hampers plural self-knowledge. In our societies, it is quite difficult to
know what we’re doing together. The paper argues that this does not block collective
responsibility, and concludes with a consideration on structural consequences for our
societies.
Plural Bodily Self-Awareness: Schmid, Zahavi, and Merleau-Ponty
Richard Weir
The aim of this paper is to provide a speculative defence of the idea, most notably advanced
recently by Hans Bernhard Schmid, that groups of individuals can possess a form of prereflective self-awareness (where pre-reflective self-awareness is held to be constitutive of
subjectivity). While this approach faces several important objections, it will be suggested
that these can be overcome by appealing to Merleau-Ponty’s account of the intrinsically
bodily nature of the subject. Specifically, it will be argued that, with Merleau-Ponty’s view in
hand, we can understand groups in general as continually developing from a more reflective,
and therefore distributive, sense of group selfhood, towards more pre-reflective forms of
self-awareness, through processes of group habituation.
Disagreement and collective self-awareness
Anna Moltchanova
I consider whether collective conscious states can exist and involve collective self-awareness
when individuals comprising a group hold diverging conceptual representations of the
content of their group experience. (Imagine that “we are looking at a rabbit” for one person
and “we are looking at a duck” for another replaces a prior pre-reflective first-person
awareness that each had of jointly looking at a picture). I examine the rival views of
individual self-awareness presented by the higher-order representational theories and the
intrinsic theories of consciousness and argue that the intrinsic theories provide a better
approach for reconciling pre-reflective collective self-awareness with possible disagreements
among individuals concerning the content of their group experience and metacognition.
Does the Sense of Commitment Require Collective Self-Awareness?
John Michael
In this paper, I will articulate the notion of a sense of commitment, which has the function of
tracking normative expectations about contributions to be made within joint actions. I will
then evaluate the question whether the sense of commitment requires a collective sense of
awareness, and if so, what form of collective self-awareness.
On the Phenomenology of Joint Agency:
A Command Abandonment Account of the Feeling of Acting Together
James Dow
Is there a distinctive positive phenomenology of joint agency? Can accounts of the
phenomenology of individual agency be extended to account for the experience of joint
agency? The reigning account of the phenomenology of joint agency suggests that the
experience of subjects engaging in joint actions involves a positive phenomenology of joint
coordinative control and the experience is accounted for in terms of central model used for
sense of individual agency— the comparator model. I argue that joint action lacks a positive
phenomenology but that a negative phenomenology of abandonment is distinctive for joint
actions and the experience is accounted for in terms of participant reactive attitudes
towards the breaking of we-intentions. In the conclusion, I outline how what I call the
command abandonment account can be extended to experts, children, and non-human
animals.
Narrative and the Stability of the We
Deborah Tollefsen and Shaun Gallagher
The basic approach to understanding joint action has been to identify individual intentional
states that are somehow “shared” by participants. But as Michael Bratman (2006) suggests
there is a problem of stability that any theory of shared agency needs to solve. Given that
participants to a joint action might form shared intentions for different reasons, what binds
them to one another such that they have some reason for continuing participating in the
joint action? This is particularly pressing in cases of joint actions that unfold over long
periods of time. There are a variety of ways that the problem of stability might be solved.
Margaret Gilbert (1989, 2013) offers a theory of shared agency that is grounded in joint
commitments. The commitments are the normative glue that binds people together and
maintains stability. Bratman addresses the problem by appeal to his planning theory of
agency (2006, 2013) and the notion of mutual assurance. We don’t intend to challenge
either of these approaches to solving the problem of stability. Instead, in this paper we want
to suggest that narrative is an additional, perhaps in some cases a predominant, way in
which stability is maintained. According to some theories, narrative plays a crucial role in
the development of the self. Our suggestion is that the narratives we tell ourselves and each
other about our joint projects contribute to the development of a stable “we.”