The Single-Minded Animal: Shared Intentionality, Normativity, and the Foundations of Discursive Cognition

399 Pages·2021·23.47 MB·English

by  Preston Stovall

Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy
THE SINGLE-MINDED ANIMAL
SHARED INTENTIONALITY, NORMATIVITY, AND THE
FOUNDATIONS OF DISCURSIVE COGNITION
Preston Stovall
“Stovall fills an important hole in the Sellars-Brandom account of
normativity, the question of how normative rationality is acquired
developmentally, by appealing to work in cognitive science on
collective intentionality and sensitivity to norms, and by introducing
a novel analysis of collective planning talk. This is an intriguing and
sophisticated account of a central issue in philosophy.”
– Stephen Turner, University of South Florida, USA
“Stovall’s is one of the very few accounts seeking to connect
empirical and philosophical approaches to human cognition that
gives normativity pride of place. This is an enormously important
book that could potentially lead the philosophy of cognitive science
to new and productive insights.”
– Michael Tomasello, Duke University

The Single-Minded Animal
This book provides an account of discursive or reason-governed cognition,
by synthesizing research in the philosophy of language, the philosophy of
mind, cognitive science, and evolutionary anthropology.
Using the grasp of a natural language as a model for the autonomous or self-
governed rationality of discursive cognition, the author uses a semantics for
individual intentions, shared intentions, and normative attitudes as a
framework for understanding what it is to be a rational animal. This
semantics interprets claims about shared intentions and claims about what
people ought and may do as the expression of plans of action that involve
taking the points of view of other people within a community. This has
important consequences for our understanding of both the natural basis and
the social relevance of intentional and normative mental states. In order to
distinguish the strong and weak modal force, which characterizes normativity
but not shared intentionality, the author argues that a notion of single-minded
practical cognition is necessary. This account of single-mindedness is then used
to shed light on the autonomy or self-government characteristic of discursive
cognition, as manifest in a linguistic community whose members are able to
adopt the standpoints of others.
Drawing together research in philosophy and the related sciences, the formal
account of the semantic content of the claims we use to give expression to
shared intentional and normative mental states integrates well with research in
cognitive science, evolutionary anthropology, and social psychology concerning
the ontogenetic and phylogenetic development of shared intentionality and
norm psychology in human beings and other primates. The Single-Minded
Animal will appeal to researchers and advanced students working on shared
intentionality, normativity, rationality, cognitive science, social and
developmental psychology, and evolutionary anthropology.
Preston Stovall is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Philosophy
and Social Sciences at the University of Hradec Králové. He received his B.A.
from Montana State University, his M.A. from Texas A&M University, and
his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. He works in the philosophy of
language, the philosophy of mind, and metaphysics, informed by a reading of
the German idealists and the American pragmatists.
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Edited by Leo Townsend, Preston Stovall, and Hans Bernard Schmid
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Edited by Christopher Badura and Amy Kind
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Edited by Blanca Boteva-Richter, Sarhan Dhouib, and James Garrison
The Single-Minded Animal
Shared Intentionality, Normativity, and the Foundations of Discursive
Cognition
Preston Stovall
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/
Routledge-Studies-in-Contemporary-Philosophy/book-series/SE0720
The Single-Minded Animal
Shared Intentionality,
Normativity, and the Foundations
of Discursive Cognition
Preston Stovall
First published 2022
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an
informa business
© 2022 Preston Stovall
The right of Preston Stovall to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78
of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Stovall, Preston, author.
Title: The single-minded animal : shared intentionality,
normativity, and the foundations of discursive cognition / Preston
Stovall.
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. |
Series: Routledge studies in contemporary philosophy | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021018491 (print) | LCCN 2021018492
(ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Discursive psychology. | Intentionality
(Philosophy) | Cognition.
Classification: LCC BF201.3 .S75 2022 (print) | LCC BF201.3
(ebook) | DDC 128/.2‐‐dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021018491
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021018492
ISBN: 978-0-367-70870-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-72406-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-15467-9 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003154679
Typeset in Sabon
by MPS Limited, Dehradun
For my parents, Jess and Cathy Stovall.

Contents
List of Figures xv
Acknowledgements xvi
Preface xvii
Introduction: Rationality, Autonomy, and
Shared Intentionality 1
Opening Remarks 1
A Normative Understanding of Rationality as Autonomy 3
The Study of Discursive Cognition from the
Standpoint of Psychological Nominalism 6
Remarks on Some Terminology Concerning the
Phenomena of Intentionality 9
A Unified View of the Person in Nature 13
Philosophical and Scientific Cross-Pollination 16
Some Explanatory Resources: Ideas of Gene-Culture
Coevolution, Niche Construction, and Social
Practices 17
The Near-Abroad Philosophical and Scientific
Landscape 21
Evolutionary Anthropology as a Framework for
Philosophical Investigation into the Nature of
Discursive Cognition 26
On the Scientific Image of Discursive Cognition 28
Reasoning Analogically about Shared Intentionality 32
Single-Minded Practical Cognition 36
Understanding the Intentional Modalities by Analogy
with the Deontic Modalities 39
Object Naturalism, Subject Naturalism, and
Deflationary Talk of Shared Intentionality 40
Overview of the Book 43