![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The paper examines the thesis that participants in shared intentional activities have first-person plural ‘practical knowledge’ of what they are jointly doing, in the sense of ‘practical knowledge’ articulated by G.E.M Anscombe. Who is supposed to be the subject of such knowledge? The group, or members of the group, or both? It is argued that progress with this issue requires conceiving of collective activities (of the kind affording ‘plural practical knowledge’)as instances, not of supra-personal agency, but of interpersonal agency; specifically: as involving communication. There is a sense, it is suggested, in which the basic form of plural practical knowledge is relational: ‘I am doing x with you.’
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 In thinking about this question I have benefited greatly from Guy Longworth’s illuminating critical discussion of what he calls shared non-observational knowledge (see Longworth (Citationforthcoming)).
2 See Smiley and Oliver (Citation2013, 113). One example of a collective predicate is ‘weigh(s) more than 100 kg’, which ‘can be true of some things without being true of each of them’.
3 For discussion of the nature of this entitlement, see Falvey (Citation2000). On the importance of avoiding mistakes in judgement, see Roessler (Citationforthcoming).
4 At least, ‘flawless’ in relation to feasibility. The epistemology of practical knowledge does not impede knowledge of pointless or evil acts.
5 Margaret Gilbert argues for a view of shared intention that may lead one to deny this. She maintains that Tina and Lena’s shared intention to go for a 30-minute walk endures even when, after ten minutes, Lena decides to go back (Citation2000, 18). At that point, it seems reasonable to suppose, Lena and Tina will not be disposed to express what Gilbert insists is still a shared intention. I’m not convinced by Gilbert’s claim that her example is tracking ‘our everyday concept of shared intention’ (Citation2000), though – I suspect it is a hyperbolic expression of the plausible view that shared intentions cannot be reduced to what she calls personal (i.e. individual) intentions.
6 The isolationist view is implicit in Stoutland’s discussion. He treats the attribution of practical knowledge to a corporation as neutral on the question of what knowledge, if any, individual members have of the corporation’s activity.
7 In thinking about this I’ve benefitted greatly from conversations with Glenda Satne (Citation2020). For further discussion of Laurence’s account, see the two papers by Satne listed in the bibliography (Citationforthcoming).
8 There may be room for debate as to whether the second-person plural can be addressed to a single speaker if she acts as a spokesperson for a group. (I am grateful to an anonymous referee for drawing my attention to this.) But this is not something Laurence’s discussion of the example exploits.
9 ‘If we are walking together, I may have whatever epistemically groundless (or perhaps introspective) knowledge of what it is I am doing. As far as your part is concerned, however, I better recall correctly what exactly it was we’ve agreed to do together’ (Schmid Citation2016, 61). (The context suggests Schmid would take the same line about my knowledge of what it is we are doing together.)
10 As an aside, let me briefly consider how the qualification that makes Laurence’s a qualified distributive view bears on the current challenge. There are, according to Laurence, conditions under which an individual’s ignorance that the group are doing x is no bar to the ‘special collective action sense’ of the reason-seeking question ‘why?’ finding application and thus no bar to describing the group as intentionally doing x together. The conditions he has in mind are roughly relations of authority and/or trust. For example, Laurence thinks the captain of a ship may have practical knowledge of what the crew as a whole are doing together, say executing a turn to starboard, even if many members of the crew have no inkling that they are participating in the activity, under that description. (2011, 290) There is, on Laurence’s account of this sort of case, an intelligible link between the captain’s individual practical reasoning and the collective intentional activity: in virtue of his position in the hierarchy he is able to settle what the group are doing, and so able to express his knowledge of what the group are doing by expressing his intention, say ‘we are executing a turn to starboard’. The problem with this analysis is not that the crew might go on strike, frustrating the captain’s carefully reasoned intentions. So long as they are in fact disposed to carry out their superiors’ orders, and the captain knows they are, he can surely know what they are all doing together. Compare: a man operating a pump may know that he is replenishing the water supply of a country house, even if the pump might not have been operational, so long as it is in fact operational, and the man knows it is. Rather, the problem can be put in the form of a dilemma. Either the captain is a sociopath who thinks of his subordinates as a mere mechanism for achieving his aims, similar to the mechanism underpinning the operation of a pump. If so, his practical reasoning will only issue in first-person singular statements, such as ‘I’m executing a turn to starboard (utilizing the machinery at my disposal).’ It will not provide him with practical knowledge of what they are all intentionally doing together. Or he thinks of his subordinates as people who act for what they consider to be good reasons. If so, he will realize that his individual practical reasoning can only take him as far as issuing orders. While he has practical knowledge that he is ordering the crew to execute a turn to starboard, his knowledge that they are all collectively executing a turn to starboard is not practical knowledge. If someone were to ask him ‘How do you know the whole crew are doing this together?’ he would have a ready answer, displaying the ‘speculative’ nature of his knowledge: ‘I know this because I’ve given them orders to that effect, which they are trained (and paid) to carry out.’
11 Lack of success is certainly compatible with the truth of the (past progressive statement) ‘she was buying tackle for catching sharks’. Compare: ‘She was buying tackle for catching sharks when aliens abducted her.’ But impossibility of success is arguably not. ‘She was buying tackle for catching sharks, though it was not to be had’ does not seem quite right. For discussion of the truth conditions of attributions of activities in the present or past progressive, see Falvey (Citation2000), Thompson (Citation2011), Wolfson (Citation2012).
12 That is not to say that she has no relevant intention whatsoever. Presumably she does intend to contribute her share to what she thought would be a joint activity.
13 See Eilan (Citationforthcoming) for illuminating discussion of the comparison.
14 This conclusion depends on the controversial assumption that the use of ‘you’ involves a distinctive way of thinking of the addressee. For discussion, see Longworth (Citation2014), Eilan (Citation2014).
15 See List and Pettit (Citation2011) for illuminating discussion of ontological and normative issues raised by the idea of what they call corporate agents.
16 For direct evidence of Velleman’s preoccupation with circularity, see Citation2000, 219–220.
17 A previous version of this paper was presented at workshops in Santiago and Cambridge. For discussion and comments I’m grateful to Tom Crowther, Naomi Eilan, Jane Heal, Diego Lawler, Guy Longworth, Lubomira Radoilska, Abraham Roth and Glenda Satne. I’d also like to record my gratitude to the British Academy for awarding Glenda and me an International Mobility Grant that made the Santiago workshop possible.