Introduction to the Special Issue on Cognition, Joint Action and Collective Intentionality

摘要

Many remember an Iron Lady claiming that there is no such thing as society but only individuals. Considerably less, we assume, are also aware that the same Lady granted existence also to families, and hence by extension to groups. If this Lady were a social philosopher, she could have continued her inquiry wondering whether families and groups, like individuals, can have intentional states. Can a family as such believe something? Can a family intend to do something as a family? More generally, what does it mean to ascribe such intentional states to a collective? What kind of attitudes have the members of a group when they jointly intend to achieve a certain result? What does it take to act as a member of a group? This kind of issues and many others related to the social and institutional reality that surrounds us (pace our Lady) fall within the scope of a field of research that goes under the rubric of Collective Intentionality.