1. The Praxiology of Shared Agency
ACERP2014 Osaka, Japan
March 03/31/2014
Piotr Makowski
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan
http://pmakowski.com/
email: makowski@amu.edu.pl
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2. OVERVIEW
COLLECTIVE ACTION vs. COOPERATION
HYPOTHESIS ABOUT THE BASIS OF COOPERATION
REMARKS ON TRADITIONAL APPROACH TO
COOPERATION
BRATMAN ON SHARED INTENTION
PROBLEMS WITH THE BRATMANIAN ACCOUNT
”WHAT THE HELL IS PRAXIOLOGY?”
PRAXIOLOGICAL ACCOUNT OF COOPERATION
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14. COLLECTIVE ACTION
vs. COOPERATION
COLLECTIVE ACTION
Examples: crowd walking on the streets, participants
attending a talk, guests drinking in a pub
COOPERATION
Examples: choir singing, orchestral performance,
walking together, playing football, organized rescue,
attending a demonstration, fighting,
what constitutes the difference between them?
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15. COLLECTIVE ACTION
vs. COOPERATION
COLLECTIVE ACTION
Examples: crowd walking on the streets, participants
attending a talk, guests drinking in a pub
COOPERATION
Examples: choir singing, orchestral performance,
walking together, playing football, organized rescue
attending a demonstration, fighting,
what constitutes the difference between them?
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16. HYPOTHESIS:
cooperation implies sharing attitudes
between agents
to articulate the conditions of doing things together is to
propose an account of agents’ mental states -
philosophy of psychology
INTENTIONS
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17. HYPOTHESIS:
cooperation implies sharing attitudes
between agents
to articulate the conditions of doing things together is to
propose an account of agents’ mental states -
philosophy of psychology
INTENTIONS
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18. TYPICAL ACCOUNTS IN
ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY
John Searle (1990) inspired by Wilfrid Sellars:
- shared agency cannot be described as a
function of sets of individual intentions
- ”we-intention” - a new irreducible primitive in our
minds which explains the possibility of
cooperation between the members of a group
acting collectively
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21. INTERLOCKING INDIVIDUAL
INTENTIONS - BRATMAN
a. Each of us intends that we paint the house.
b. Each of us intends that we paint the house by way of the
intention of the other that we paint the house. (...)
c. Each of us intends that (...) our sub-plans for our painting
mesh with each other, in the sense of being co-possible.
d. Each of us believes that our intentions in a. are
interdependent in their persistence (...).
e. There is in fact interdependence in persistence of the
intentions in a.
f. These conditions are out in the open among us.
(Bratman 2013: 57-58)
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22. INTERLOCKING INDIVIDUAL
INTENTIONS - BRATMAN
We intend to J if and only if
1. (a) I intend that we J and (b) you intend that we J
2. I intend that we J in accordance with and because of 1(a),
1(b) and meshing subplans of 1(a) and 1(b); you intend that
we J in accordance with and because of 1(a), 1(b), and
meshing subplans of 1(a) and 1(b).
3. 1 and 2 are common knowledge between us.
(Bratman 1993: 106)
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23. SHARED AGENCY
(BRATMAN)
INTERDEPENDENT INTENTIONS
[I (continue to) intend that we A,
because you (continue to) intend that we A]
COMMON KNOWLEDGE
[I know and you know that we (continue to) intend that we
A, you know that I know that... etc.]
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24. PROBLEMS WITH THE
BRATMANIAN APPROACH
1. Conditions described may be sufficient for
cooperation, but - are they necessary?
2. Do these conditions apply to the standard cases of
cooperation?
Bratman focuses on “small, adult groups in the absence of
asymmetric authority relations”
it seems that there are many typical examples of
cooperation which do not meet the conditions Bratman
describes
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25. PROBLEMS WITH THE
BRATMANIAN APPROACH
1. Conditions described may be sufficient for
cooperation, but - are they necessary?
2. Do these conditions apply to the standard cases of
cooperation?
Bratman focuses on “small, adult groups in the absence of
asymmetric authority relations” (Bratman 2014: 7)
it seems that there are many typical examples of
cooperation which do not meet the conditions Bratman
describes
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28. PRAXIOLOGICAL APPROACH
TO COOPERATION
the necessary and sufficient conditions of effectiveness of
any type of cooperative action (on a micro- and macro-
scale)
two sorts of shared actions:
positive cooperation: sharing goals with mutual support/help
negative cooperation (fight): making difficulties for each other
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29. PRAXIOLOGICAL APPROACH
TO COOPERATION
apart from Bratman’s ”duets and quartets”...
- various types of massively shared agency (organized
business actions, acting institutions, demonstrations),
- asymmetric cooperation (with authority),
- automated cooperation (the Mexican wave)
- negative cooperation (games, fights, duels, battles, wars)
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31. (POSITIVE) COOPERATION
SHARED GOALS ✓
- wanted or accepted, not necessarily collectively built
REASONS FOR ACTION ✓
- not necessarily the same, but always appropriate
INTERLOCKING INTENTIONS ✘
- not necessary when we follow rules or orders
COMMON KNOWLEDGE ✘
- only awareness of tendencies to act
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32. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bratman, Michael E. (1993). “Shared Intention”. Ethics 104: 97–113.
Bratman, Michael E. (2013). “Fecundity of Planning Agency” in Oxford
Studies in Agency and Responsibility. ed. by D. Shoemaker. Oxford
UP: 47-69.
Bratman, Michael E. (2014). Shared Agency. A Planning Theory of
Acting Together. Oxford UP.
Kotarbinski, Tadeusz (1965). Praxiology: an Introduction to the
Sciences of Efficient Action. transl. by O. Wojtasiewicz. New York:
Pergamon Press [original Polish edition: Traktat o dobrej robocie,
Warszawa: Ossolineum 1955].
Searle, John (1990). “Collective Intentions and Actions” in Intentions
in Communication. ed by P. Cohen, J. Morgan & M. Pollack. MIT
Press: 401-415.
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33. The Praxiology of Shared Agency
ACERP2014 Osaka, Japan
March 03/31/2014
Piotr Makowski
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan
http://pmakowski.com/
email: makowski@amu.edu.pl
33
