Collective Intentionality, Norms and Institutions

188 Pages·2014·1.214 MB·English

by  Guido Seddone

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their common roots and to bring them Philosophical Studies at the University of y,
back to an unitary origin. It is profoundly Cagliari (2005) and a PhD in Philosophy t
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ISBN 978-3-631-65196-4
This document is licensed to Guido Seddone (0)
265196_Seddone_AM_A5HCk PLE edition new.indd 1 23.05.14 KW 21 16:23
e
n
o
d
d
e
S
o
d Guido Seddone
i
u
Guido Seddone G
Collective Intentionality, Norms and Institutions s Collective Intentionality,
n
o
Cooperation is the fundamental feature ones and to find a common denomina- i
t
of intelligent beings. It makes them able tor for joint actions. It also explores the u Norms and Institutions
to evolve complex social behaviors and social-political aspects related to joint it
t
to better resolve practical issues. Humans activities and deals with the notion of s
have evolved a very powerful form of intersubjective freedom. n
I
cooperation, which is spread anywhere d A Philosophical Investigation
in the everyday life: norms, institutions, n
states, hierarchies, ordinary relation- a about Human Cooperation
ships, etc., are deeply determined by the The Author s
m
original notion of cooperation. This book Guido Seddone studied Philosophy,
addresses the conditions of the human History and German at the Universities r
o
cooperative activities in order to focus on of Pisa and Vienna. He obtained a PhD in N
their common roots and to bring them Philosophical Studies at the University of y,
back to an unitary origin. It is profoundly Cagliari (2005) and a PhD in Philosophy t
animated by the task of understanding at the University of Leipzig (2011). He li
a
how cooperative skills are able to evolve is currently a Research Fellow at the n
the plurality of the cooperative activities University of Sassari and Visiting Scholar o
from the spontaneous to the institutional at the University of Leipzig. i
t
n
e
t
n
I
e
v
i
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This document is licensed to Guido Seddone (0)
265196_Seddone_AM_A5HCk PLE edition new.indd 1 23.05.14 KW 21 16:23
Collective Intentionality, Norms and Institutions
This document is licensed to Guido Seddone (0)
This document is licensed to Guido Seddone (0)
Guido Seddone

Collective Intentionality,
Norms and Institutions
A Philosophical Investigation
about Human Cooperation

This document is licensed to Guido Seddone (0)
Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet
at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Seddone, Guido.
Collective intentionality, norms and institutions : a philosophical
investigation about human cooperation / Guido Seddone. – 1 [edition].
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-3-631-65196-4
1. Cooperation. 2. Human behavior. I. Title.
HD2963.S43 2014
302'.14–dc23
2014018786

Cover illustration:
Francesco Ciusa: Il Fromboliere,
Museo Ciusa, Nuoro

ISBN 978-3-631-65196-4 (Print)
E-ISBN 978-3-653-04608-3 (E-Book)
DOI 10.3726/978-3-653-04608-3
© Peter Lang GmbH
Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
Frankfurt am Main 2014
All rights reserved.
Peter Lang Edition is an Imprint of Peter Lang GmbH.
Peter Lang – Frankfurt am Main ∙ Bern ∙ Bruxelles ∙ New York ∙
Oxford ∙ Warszawa ∙ Wien
All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any
utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without
the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to
prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions,
translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in
electronic retrieval systems.
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Contents
Preface .................................................................................................................. 7
I. Linguistic-Theoretical Definition of Joint Actions and Cooperation ........... 11
1. Nature and Origins of We-Intentionality ...................................................... 13
a. Definition of We-Intentionality .............................................................. 14
b. Belongingness and Being-with-an-other ................................................ 31
c. Break-up of the Community .................................................................. 52
d. Belongingness as a Plot of Language, Language
Transmission and Social Collaborative Activities ................................. 55
e. Conclusions ............................................................................................ 60
2. Norms and Institutions ................................................................................. 63
a. Symbolization of Social Collaborative Activities
through Language .................................................................................. 65
b. The Dialogical Dimension of the Normative ......................................... 78
c. Development of Institutions ................................................................... 95
II. Social-political Aspects of Cooperation ...................................................... 119
3. Borders of Cooperation .............................................................................. 121
a. Hierarchy and Obedience ..................................................................... 122
b. Culture of Freedom and Borders of Cooperation ................................ 139
c. Conclusions .......................................................................................... 152
4. Institutions and Intersubjective Freedom ................................................... 153
a. Definition of Intersubjective Freedom ................................................. 156
b. Freedom and Institutions ...................................................................... 168
References ........................................................................................................ 183
5
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Preface
This book explains a theory about human cooperation that I have developed
during several years of research. The main question addressed concerns the notion
of We meant as an intentional agency formed by the contribution of individual
and autonomous intentional beings normally called members. The necessity for
giving an account of the dynamic, historic and adaptive feature of a We forced me
to define it as a cooperative enterprise that is preserved, evolved and transmitted
by means of the personal engagement of its members. Moreover, a We can either
distinguish itself or be distinguished from other We-entities through the notions
of group and social organization. The unity and the identity of a cooperative en-
terprise is determined by the internal interaction of its members and can be called
cooperative firmness or agreement. The notion of We is cognitively determined
by its members but its ontology or reality depends on their contributions. In other
words, a social organization is a social object and is conceived as such by its
members; however, it is also a historic, enduring and adaptive agency that can
bear many things like, for example, responsibility for its actions or institutional
shape. Thus when we think about a social organization we prevalently figure out
a cooperative enterprise that acts historically by means of the actions of its mem-
bers. Being a member fundamentally means assuming a We-mode attitude, i.e. an
intentional good disposition towards one’s own group. However, this notion does
not explain the interdependence between the existence of a group and the personal
engagement of its members and consequently it does not contemplate the fact that
social organizations are real, enduring and adaptive agencies. The entire book is
profoundly animated by the task of understanding how human cooperative skills
are able to evolve the plurality of the cooperative activities from the spontaneous
to the institutional ones and to find a common denominator for joint actions. I
believe that all joint activities are characterized by the actualization and improve-
ment of practical forms acquired by the singular individuals during the process of
integration. There is hence a correlation between we-attitudes and the rules of joint
activities because individual intentionality is shaped by the integration in common
and shareable pursuits. Human intentionality is properly a we-attitude because
it is quite difficult to conceive of it outside the symbolized dimension of the hu-
man practices as both Wittgenstein, Heidegger and more recently M. Tomasello
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maintain. Therefore, belonging to a community means acquiring competencies
about a practical, social and cooperative environment in which the participants
contribute to its preservation, improvement and the transmission to new members.
Cooperation is therefore strictly related to both the event of integration of indi-
vidual participants and the historic evolution of the group in which individuals
are integrated and for which they offer their contribution for the conservation of
the group itself. By relating cooperative attitudes with the process of integration
one can coherently understand the different forms of cooperative activities, such
as the spontaneous, the occasional, the institutionalized and the enduring ones
and develop a theory of social groups as enduring, historic and adaptive entities.
The book aims to furnish an extensive and coherent conception of cooperation
and therefore it also tackles questions concerning the socio-political consequences
of acting jointly. Hierarchies, obedience, submission, etc. represent dysfunctional
alterations within the cooperative activities that are considered here in order to
delineate those cooperative designs in which individual autonomy is not prevented
but rather promoted. On the contrary, cooperation is conceivable in a liberal politi-
cal dimension in which a social organization is not authorized to exert power over
the autonomy of its members.
The book is divided in four sections, which are incorporated in two different
parts. The first part is about cooperation in general while the second deals with
social-political aspects connected with the evolution of social activities. Since the
sections are reciprocally related and the parts indicate general arguments, I have
decided to numerate them independently from the division in parts. This is the rea-
son why the two sections of the second part are indicated as section three and four.
Each section is divided in chapters, which are indicated with alphabetic characters.
The first part deals with general aspects of cooperation such as we-intentionality,
belongingness, plural subjects, interaction, language, institutions, etc. The first sec-
tion tackles the cognitive aspects related to the human disposition to form groups
and evolve joint activities, while the second gives an account of the development
of norms and institutions within the cooperative dimension. In fact, cooperation
is the outcome of spontaneous practical attitudes but it also develops institutions,
improving the cooperative activities themselves. As language improves the daily
interaction, norms and institutions improve the cooperative activities by establish-
ing what is right and what is wrong in the behavior of every member. Since states
and nations are institutions this section also introduces the argument of the second
part of the book.
There are many social-political aspects connected with cooperation and par-
ticularly with the development of institutions like, for example, the function of
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