Unbearable Reflectiveness

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Unbearable Reflectiveness

At this point I want to consider Hans Bernard Schmid’s diagnosis of why we have failed to understand shared agency. His suggestion is that the leading approaches are mistaken in construing exercises as shared agency as involving reflection on knowledge or awareness of others’ intentions, plans, knowledge states or readiness to commit to having these.

‘participants in joint action are usually focused on whatever it is they are jointly doing rather than on each other. Where joint action goes smoothly, the participants are not thinking about the others anymore than they are thinking about themselves’

\citep[p.~37]{Schmid:2013}

Schmid (2013, p. 37)

I don’t think this observation is an argument or an objection; I’ll treat it as a potential diagnosis that might guide the construction of an alternative.

Let me first remind you of how three accounts show symptoms consistent with Schmid’s diagnosis. In Pacherie’s account, we need beliefs about the others and their team reasoning.

In Bratman’s account we need intentions about others’ intentions ...

Consider Bratman ...

Recall that Bratman proposes sufficient conditions for us to have a shared intention that we J ...

... the idea is then that an intentional joint action is an action that is appropriately related to a shared intention.

We have a shared intention that we J 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 la, lb, and meshing subplans of la and lb; you intend [likewise] …

‘3. 1 and 2 are common knowledge between us’

(Bratman 1993: View 4)

Note that the conditions require not just that we intend the joint action, but that we intend it because of each other's intentions, where this is common knowledge.

So we need not just intentions about intentions ...

... also you need to know things about my knowledge of your intentions concerning my intentions.

Of course, these are sufficient not necessary conditions, so we can’t infer from the fact that these conditions require reflection to the conclusion that exercising shared agency always requires reflection.

But Bratman also specifies a functional role; it is necessary (on his view) that shared intentions play this role.

And, as I argued earlier, coordinating planning is unlikely to be possible without knowledge of facts about others’ plans.

So, on Bratman’s view, exercising shared agency in, say, moving a table from here to there involves us considering not only facts about about the table’s size and the space around it but also facts about each other’s intentions and plans.

Suppose you and I are tasked with moving this table through that door. In doing this, must my plan take into account facts about your intentions as well as about the weight of the table, width of the door &c?

Gilbert

Although this is less obvious, on Gilbert’s view there is a similar need for awareness of others’ mental states in exercising shared agency.

First recall what Gilbert says about shared intention:

For us to have a shared intention that we φ is for us to be jointly committed to emulate a single body which intends to φ

Second, think about how, on Gilbert’s view, joint commitment is possible. In all the basic cases ...

Joint commitment requires

mutual awareness of expressions of readiness to so commit

On Gilbert’s view, participating in any of the social phenomena she analyses involves expressing readiness to commit, and ...

... and our being mutually aware of these expressions of readiness.

As Gilbert herself notes, this requires thinking thoughts about joint commitment plus other notions used in the analysis (p.~334).

Thus acting together requires thinking about intentions and about joint commitments, and jointly attending to an object requires thinking about joint attention and about joint commitments.

This also has implications for development, by the way.

Consider two-year-old toddlers who cannot yet think about joint commitments and appear insensitive to the possibility of them \citep{Grafenhain:2010zl,hamann:2012_children}. % \footnote{% % See \citet{Grafenhain:2010zl}. % While many recent findings have shown that toddlers’ social cognition is surprisingly sophisticated, it would be a precocious toddler indeed that was sensitive to whether she had the standing to rebuke another party to a joint commitment. % } On Gilbert’s view, it is impossible for there to be mutual recognition between toddler and adult, and it is impossible to act together with a toddler, by, for instance, looking at a book together, sharing a smile, or walking together. This is unexpected given evidence that toddlers appear to spontaneously initiate, and to repair, such joint activities \citep[e.g.][]{Warneken:2006qe,warneken:2013_young}.

Pacherie

‘Two persons P1 and P2 share an intention to A, if:

(i) each has a self-conception as a member of the team T, consisting of P1 and P2 (collective self-framing);

(i’) each believes (i) (group identification expectation);

(ii) each reasons that A is the best choice of action for the team (team reasoning from a group viewpoint); and

(iii) each therefore intends to do his part of A (team reasoning from an individual viewpoint).’

\citep{pacherie:2013_lite}

Pacherie (2013)

see also Sugden (2000); Gold & Sugden (2006); Pacherie (2011)

Step 2b: Pacherie on ‘Shared intention lite’ (best account linking shared intention to team reasoning)

*FORGOT TO SAY IN LAST LECTURE: Does team reasoning or Pacherie’s account meet Searle’s constraint: ‘The notion of a [shared intention] ... implies the notion of cooperation’ Searle (1990, p. 95)? Yes, beautifully

This is needed to deal with the potential objection; and I suggested that belief conditions are needed for all of the conditions as well (otherwise we could have a shared intention while rationally and with justification believing that we do not).

Recall Hans Bernard Schmid’s diagnosis of why we have failed to understand shared agency. How does the Simple View stand with respect to this diagnosis?

Schmid (2013, p. 37)

Simple View

Two or more agents perform an intentional joint action
exactly when there is an act-type, φ, such that
each agent intends that
they, these agents, φ together
and their intentions are appropriately related to their actions.

I think if Schmid’s claim is an objection, it is not an objection to the Simple View.

Recall Hans Bernard Schmid’s diagnosis of why we have failed to understand shared agency. As I said earlier, his suggestion is that the leading approaches are mistaken in construing exercises as shared agency as involving reflection on knowledge or awareness of others’ intentions, plans, knowledge states or readiness to commit to having these.

\citep[p.~37]{Schmid:2013}

Schmid (2013, p. 37)

‘individual agents of temporally extended actions “represent” their own future intentions and actions in the same way in which cooperators represent their partners’ intentions and actions.’

\citep[p.~49]{Schmid:2013}

Schmid (2013, p. 49)

Dominant View: ‘the representation of the participation of the others has a mind-to-world direction of fit.’

Alternative View: ‘the representation of the participation of the others has a world-to-mind direction of fit.’

\citep[p.~38]{Schmid:2013}

Schmid (2013, p. 38)

explain

Ok, this is just an assertion. What’s the argument for it ...

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Unbearable Reflectiveness

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