Request removal from index. From the Publisher via CrossRef no proxy dx. Husserl, Intersubjectivity, and Collective Intentionality. Chelstrom - - Lexington Books. Nam-In Lee - - Husserl Studies 17 1: Philosophical Essays in Memory of Edmund Husserl. On the Interpersonal Shaping of Experience. Matt Bower - - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 14 3: Dan Zahavi - - Stanford University Press. Husserl's Theory of Intentionality. Mabaquiao - - Philosophia 34 1: Precisely by doing so, the parties are jointly committed to the intentional action such that, unlike in the case of personal commitments, none of the parties can suspend the obligation thus created separately, not even the aggre- gate of the respective subjects, each taken separately.
For an illuminating critical elaboration of the contrast between Bratman and Searle, see Schmid 19 , ff. Consequently, some have argued that, if CI presupposes col- lective acceptance or joint commitments, then these, in turn, cannot be explained by reference to isolated, solipsistic individuals but, rather, must make reference to certain normative relations of obligations, rights to corrections, etc. As Schmid puts it in a yet more radically relational vein: For collective intentionality is not subjective. In other words, there is no collective intentionality without individuals who we-intend pace Bratman , but we-intentions are only what they are when individuals relate to another accordingly pace Searle ; indeed, they are nothing but relatedness cf.
Moreover, the commonality involved in practical and theoretical CI, for Husserl, is irreducible to the conjunction of propositional content, we- mode, and plural subject, nor is it constituted by either of them separately. Rather, it is a constitutional result of the above outlined, multi-layered process of commu- nalization, beginning with empathy, advancing to the sharing of a we-perspective and the corresponding constitution of a common lifeworld, and concluding with higher order persons.
It is in this sense that subjects of CI, phenomenologically viewed, are ab ovo communalized, that they are subjects who always already stand in social relations to one another. Compare, again, the quote above from Husserl: Above and beyond the aforementioned ones, here is another telling passage in support of this view: Associations Vereine , communities of will Willensgemeinschaften.
An agreement upon a goal to be achieved jointly, however, is not an association. Hua X, 79, f. Szanto sioned beauftragt , or acts without a commission by herself, but not as a private person, but as a member in the spirit im Sinne of the association.
The appropriately directed will is will as a member. Hua XIII, Notice, however, the following crucial difference from Gilbert or any collective commitment or agreement view, a difference that also allows Husserl to parry objec- tions of circularity of the sort mentioned above Thus, quite unlike current propos- als, at a number of places, Husserl submits that collective acceptance, agreement, or commitment typically is a result and not, in any substantial sense, a constituent of collective or group-intentionality cf. Moreover, mutual or collective agreements, for Husserl, even if in place, are not necessarily made explicit.
Indeed, typically, agreements are made against a more general yet not any less fundamental background of commonality. Finally, as to the relational accounts, in an important sense, Husserl concurs with such accounts. For Husserl, too, holds that some background of commonality or sharedness must be always already presupposed in order for individuals to engage in CI in the first place, and that this is constituted, not by pre-social individuals, but, rather, by intrinsically social relations among such individuals.
Given this reassessment of Husserl against the contemporary proposals, I pro- pose the following systematic reading of his view on CI: The upshot, then, is this: Collectivity, or jointness in collective intentions, for Husserl, is constituted by the appropriate intentional integration of the intentional, goal-directed, normative, volitional and practical properties of the mental life of always and already socialized and communalized individuals.
Hence, the result is a genu- inely we-mode volitional act. Now, if this integration is robust enough, then what is thus constituted is a so- called practical community of will, or a fully-fledged higher order person HOP. Moreover, if this is the case, then HOPs—above and beyond the collective inten- tionality of jointly engaged individuals—have a we-mode group intention to G.
Consequently, in such cases and only in such cases, mind you , the communaliza- tion does not stop at 5 , but, instead, assumes more robust forms.
What we have, then, is this: More specifically, consider two related but distinct variants of anti- individualism, both of which, I contend, Husserl, in fact, endorses: There are intentional states and practical intentions that have a first-person plural form or mode i. We- mode- intentions possibly, to wit, under suit- able socio-practical integration of their respective subjects, have a supra- individual higher order subject of intention.
While most current authors would advocate the weaker, formal anti-individualism Searle, Tuomela, and, obviously, Gilbert, although with the notable exception of Bratman, against whom it is mainly directed , the latter, stronger, subject anti-individualism seems deeply problematic to most participants of the CI-debate, with the few prominent exceptions of Gilbert and Pettit, and his co-authors. Yet, is formal-cum-subject anti-individualism not precisely too strong of an alternative?
Edmund Husserl: Intentionality and Intentional Content
In the present context, the fallacy would be to infer from the jointness of the content or mode of CI the existence of one—potentially 23 This important distinction is introduced in Schmid , , ff. This objection may also be voiced in terms of a fallacy of composi- tion, or a homuncular fallacy cf. Chelstrom , 30, In a similar yet more serious line of objection, Schmid has argued that Husserl would simply take over his egological categories and project them onto higher order entities. The common charge in both objections is that, by postulating a collective subjectivity with a consciousness of its own, one would reify intersubjective relations.
Szanto a , I contend that these objections are ultimately misguided. CSs, qua collective subjects, must be construed so as to account for the fact that they are not just a simple collection, aggregate or plurality of individuals, but have a certain integrity as a subjectivity with its own intentional point of view. Pettit and Szanto , but to the more specific claim of collectivizing subjects of CI. To start with, it is crucial to note that the process of intentional communalization outlined above constitutes distinct types of subjects of collective intentions.
Though Husserl, admit- tedly, fails to provide a systematic taxonomy of the variety of subjects of CI, one can devise the following four main types of social subjectivities: Individuals and HOPs do not relate to one another as individuals relate to other individuals. Thus, even though there is a robust unity to such multiplicities, such that HOPs can be said to synthesize their individual mem- bers, the relation between them is not a simple mereological containment, for the individuals remain distinct, or separate, in two ways: And, precisely in that sense, individuals always remain distinct and independent from any supra- individual subjectivity.
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As Husserl succinctly puts it: Quite the contrary, in an anti-collectivist vein Husserl, emphasizes the fact that intentional integration is not only strictly compatible with plurality and separateness of the mental and personal life of the respective individuals, but, moreover, that this very separateness is itself the transcendental condition of possibility of any social integration cf.
None of the above, however, precludes such. Quite the contrary, Husserl notes that dispute, hatred, fights, etc. Hua XV, Yet, however distinct and however multiple, the concept of socio-practical inte- gration must be taken literally. Rather, they are functional and intentional poles of actions, thoughts, intentions, or values.
Indeed, we find further ammunition for this interpretation in Husserl when he observes that HOPs are different, not only from mere intersubjective engagements in social acts, but also from multipolar communities, where individual members are each separately focused on a shared goal.
Importantly, this point of view may be epistemologically orthogonal and is, in any case, irreducible to each and every first-person point of view of the respective group members cf. Now, what about a proper phenomenological point of view? Do groups have such, or are groups, instead, individuated exclusively by their rational, practical and intentional point of view? In other words, what about the conscious experiences of such centred communities?
For, if every intentional state is eo ipso a con- scious mental state cf. Szanto , as this correlation indeed entails, one might wonder whether this equally holds for the intentional states of HOPs. The decisive step down this road is to properly distinguish four different senses in which Husserl speaks of social and collective self- conscious properties This is founded on empathic consciousness and corresponds to the above- mentioned we-synthesis, whereby, via various intentional implications, each individual is experiencing the other, not simpliciter, but as experiencing the same world, i.
From the context of the respective passages, then, it is rather clear that what is meant by these forms of consciousness is but a transcendental correlate of the intersubjective horizon of possible experiences of a universally shared lifeworld. See also Hart , for a congenial discussion of the self-con- sciousness of HOP.
Finally, and certainly most controversially, Husserl occasionally, and sometimes, indeed, in the very same passages concerning the other senses, most especially the second as enumerated above, invokes the notion of a sui generis higher-order self- consciousness Hua XIV, ; XXVII, However, this ought not to delude us, for Husserl hastens to add to the same passages that all conscious acts of the community are founded upon and performed, qua acts of consciousness, by the acts of the respective individual members Hua XXVII, Moreover, from the context of these two passages, it is quite clear that what happens when HOPs are said to have self-consciousness is not simply that either some or all members become conscious of themselves being members of the given HOP, including any subsequent awareness of the normative and ethical obligations that this membership entails.
For example, somebody may perform self-reflection as a group member, i.
Notwithstanding either some misleading formulations or the fact that Husserl fails to systematically disambiguate the intentional, normative, rational and quasi- personal features of the mental life of communities and the respective concepts of higher order group persons, group minds, and collective and social con- sciousness, one does not detect, in Husserl, any genuinely problematic form of hypostasizing a collective bearer of consciousness or a giving way to the tendency of reifying conscious properties on the collective level.
Now, this fact alone, however unfamiliar it may be to most, does not make much of a difference, to be sure. What, then, do we gain from the specific Husserlian account? Let us take stock of what I take to be the five key merits of the Husserlian account: Verily, such a theory accounts for the fact that the social- ization of individuals—i. Thus, Husserl offers a more fine-grained descrip- tion of the constitution of sociality, both on the inter- subjective, as well as the collective level. Furthermore, such a description is not carried out from an external point of view pace Mathiesen , in terms of some observable socio- ontological functions, structures or systems but, instead, from the first-person sin- gular and plural perspective of the respective individuals and groups.
This alter- native yields a robust formal-cum-subject anti-individualism. It undercuts the need for deciding between tying in collectivity with either the subject, the mode, or the content of collective intentionality. Moreover, it renders dissuasive the circularity objection regarding the question of a foundational priority of collectivity over indi- vidual we- intentions. Of course, this, in turn, rests on those mechanisms through which such integration and com- munalization are achieved, as well as on how robust the social integration is. Finally, this multi-dimensional model of the respective subjects of CI helps Husserl to vin- dicate intentional anti-collectivism and, also, to block the alluring but erroneous tendency to reify subjectivity on the group level.
Acknowledgments Versions of this paper were presented at University College Dublin , the University of Graz , and the University of Vienna On all of these occasions, I received valuable comments and esp. I would also like to thank Tim Burns, Sophie Loidolt, Geoffrey Manzi, Franz Prammer and Gerhard Thonhauser, all of whom commented on the penultimate version, and, not least, to the editors of this volume, Alessandro Salice and Hans Bernhard Schmid, as well as two anonymous referees for their helpful criticism.
A phenomenological study of the fundamental structure of society.
Husserl on Collective Intentionality | Thomas Szanto - theranchhands.com
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