Why We Did It: An Anscombian Account of Collective Action

International Journal of Philosophical Studies 17 (5):637-655 (2009)
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Abstract

In this paper, I am concerned with persons' capacity for joint action. I start by suggesting that approaches which seek to account for that capacity in terms of collective intentionality face a problem: there are actions that clearly seem to qualify as collective even though the involved persons cannot be said to entertain an overarching 'We'-intention (however one characterizes this notion). I then go on to develop an alternative account of action that loosely draws on Elizabeth Anscombe's action theory and show how this alternative account can be applied to joint action. In so doing, I stress the importance of the phenomenal dimension of agency

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Citations of this work

Practical knowledge and acting together.Blomberg Olle - 2018 - In J. Adam Carter, Andy Clark, Jesper Kallestrup, Orestis Palermos & Duncan Pritchard (eds.), Socially Extended Knowledge. Oxford University Press. pp. 87-111.
Joint action and spontaneity.Alexander Leferman - 2023 - European Journal of Philosophy.
Joint Motor Action and Cross-Creature Embodiment.Axel Seemann - 2011 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 2 (2):279-301.

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References found in this work

The Varieties of Reference.Gareth Evans - 1982 - Oxford: Oxford University Press. Edited by John Henry McDowell.
Reference and Consciousness.John Campbell - 2002 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Individuals.P. F. Strawson - 1959 - Garden City, N.Y.: Routledge.

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