Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-7qhmt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T15:28:43.191Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - The Plural Subject versus the Relational Subject

from Part I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2015

Pierpaolo Donati
Affiliation:
Università di Bologna
Margaret S. Archer
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
Margaret S. Archer
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
Pierpaolo Donati
Affiliation:
Università di Bologna
Get access

Summary

In ordinary life, we, qua individuals, often speak in the plural referring to a ‘We’. People say: we had lunch together, we went on holiday together, we wrote a book together, we furnished our house together, we had the same opinion about that, and so on and so forth. This ‘we’ is a term whose referent remains unspecified and serves only to indicate who was involved in an event. Its reality is taken for granted in everyday life. If one asks people to say what constitutes the ‘we’ they are talking about, most likely they will indicate a number of individuals and/or give a list of names, starting or ending with I myself. In ordinary language use, the ‘we’ appears to refer to an aggregate of people, seemingly wanting, doing, or thinking the same thing.

However, most philosophers and social scientists agree that the ‘we’ cannot be a simple aggregate of individuals who are supposed to share an idea, an action or a purpose. There must be more than that, but when they try to give an explanation of what lies behind the ‘we’, they also differ greatly in their accounts of it. The understanding of what constitutes the ‘we’ – in terms of intentions, beliefs, opinions, attitudes, orientations, thoughts, and actions – is crucial in comprehending most, though not all, aspects of the social. Therefore, it becomes essential to reach a clearer and sounder view of the ‘we’ as a social subject.

In this chapter, we begin (please, note that whenever one of us speaks each of us does so as part of a ‘we’) by considering the notion of the ‘Plural Subject’, which has received a lot of attention as a generic answer to the question about who and what the ‘we’ is that is so influential in social life. We want to show that the explanations of ‘Plural Subject’ theorists are both ill-founded and inadequate for the job.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×