INTRODUCTION TO COLLECTIVE INTENTIONALITY

Suppose two persons plan to carry a table upstairs together. Their plan will consist of their intentions to carry the table together and their shared beliefs concerning how to do it. There is joint or collective intentionality here about the joint action of carrying the table and about the means for doing it. Thus there is collective intentionality or aboutness related to intending and believing. In the case of joint intending the relevant part of the world has to be (jointly) changed to accord with the content of the intention for it to be satisfied. Thus the satisfaction relation here has the world-to-mind direction of fit. In the case of shared or mutual belief the correctness of the belief is determined on the basis of what the world is like and the direction of fit is mind-to-world (cf. Searle, 1983 and 2001 for this kind of account). In the “fitness” relation the first term is the variable and the second one the constant factor in the situation. We may speak of collective intentionality also in the case of emotions like joy, fear, and shame.

Not only intentions and beliefs but also emotions, such as shared joy, can be analyzed in terms of shared we-attitudes. In the case of shared we-attitudes the social bond between the agents is their relevant beliefs concerning others' attitudes and beliefs concerning them.