Shared Intentionality, joint commitment, and directed obligation

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Gilbert
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Account ◽  
Joint Commitment ◽  
Shared Intentionality

Abstract Tomasello frequently refers to joint commitment, but does not fully characterize it. In earlier publications, I have offered a detailed account of joint commitment, tying it to a sense that the parties form a “we,” and arguing that it grounds directed obligations and rights. Here I outline my understanding of joint commitment and its normative impact.

scholarly journals Chimpanzees communicate to coordinate a cultural practice

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoë Goldsborough ◽  
Anne Marijke Schel ◽  
Edwin J.C. van Leeuwen
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Matched Control ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
Human Species ◽  
Joint Commitment ◽  
Shared Intentionality ◽  
Cultural Behavior ◽  
Behavioral Expression ◽  
Interactive Nature ◽  
Control Methodology

Human culture is considered to differ from animal culture due to its interactive nature built on shared intentionality and cognitive flexibility. Here, we investigated whether chimpanzees use communication to engage in cultural practices by analyzing grooming handclasp (GHC) interactions – a socio-cultural behavior requiring coordination. Previous accounts attributed GHC initiations to behavioral shaping whereby the initiator physically molds the partner’s arm into the GHC posture. Using frame-by-frame analysis and matched-control methodology, we find that chimpanzees use gestural communication to initiate GHC, which requires an active and synchronized response from the partner. This showcases a behavioral expression of joint commitment to engage in this shared cultural practice. Moreover, we show that GHC initiators used various initiation strategies, attesting to situation-contingent interactional flexibility. We conclude that chimpanzees can be jointly committed to a cultural practice, which suggests that culture predicated on shared intentionality and flexible communication may not be unique to the human species.

scholarly journals How apes get into and out of joint actions

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Emilie Genty ◽  
Raphaela Heesen ◽  
Jean-Pascal Guéry ◽  
Federico Rossano ◽  
Klaus Zuberbühler ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Joint Action ◽  
Great Apes ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Joint Commitment ◽  
Shared Intentionality ◽  
Joint Actions ◽  
Joint Activities ◽  
Evolutionary Response ◽  
Action Coordination ◽  
Complex Joint

Abstract Compared to other animals, humans appear to have a special motivation to share experiences and mental states with others (Clark, 2006; Grice, 1975), which enables them to enter a condition of ‘we’ or shared intentionality (Tomasello & Carpenter, 2005). Shared intentionality has been suggested to be an evolutionary response to unique problems faced in complex joint action coordination (Levinson, 2006; Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll, 2005) and to be unique to humans (Tomasello, 2014). The theoretical and empirical bases for this claim, however, present several issues and inconsistencies. Here, we suggest that shared intentionality can be approached as an interactional achievement, and that by studying how our closest relatives, the great apes, coordinate joint action with conspecifics, we might demonstrate some correlate abilities of shared intentionality, such as the appreciation of joint commitment. We provide seven examples from bonobo joint activities to illustrate our framework.

How is the moral stance related to the intentional stance and group thinking?

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannes Rakoczy
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Intentional Stance ◽  
Cognitive Capacities ◽  
Shared Intentionality ◽  
History Of ◽  
Group Thinking ◽  
Moral Stance

Abstract The natural history of our moral stance told here in this commentary reveals the close nexus of morality and basic social-cognitive capacities. Big mysteries about morality thus transform into smaller and more manageable ones. Here, I raise questions regarding the conceptual, ontogenetic, and evolutionary relations of the moral stance to the intentional and group stances and to shared intentionality.

Charles Francis Adams: diary of a young American taxidermist visiting New Zealand, 1884–1887

2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. J. Gill
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Marine Invertebrates ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Detailed Account ◽  
East Indies ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Set Up ◽  
White Island

In December 1884 Charles Francis Adams (1857–1893) left Illinois, USA, by train for San Francisco and crossed the Pacific by ship to work as taxidermist at Auckland Museum, New Zealand, until February 1887. He then went to Borneo via several New Zealand ports, Melbourne and Batavia (Jakarta). This paper concerns a diary by Adams that gives a daily account of his trip to Auckland and the first six months of his employment (from January to July 1885). In this period Adams set up a workshop and diligently prepared specimens (at least 124 birds, fish, reptiles and marine invertebrates). The diary continues with three reports of trips Adams made from Auckland to Cuvier Island (November 1886), Karewa Island (December 1886) and White Island (date not stated), which are important early descriptive accounts of these small offshore islands. Events after leaving Auckland are covered discontinuously and the diary ends with part of the ship's passage through the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), apparently in April 1887. Adams's diary is important in giving a detailed account of a taxidermist's working life, and in helping to document the early years of Auckland Museum's occupation of the Princes Street building.

Lorenzo at ‘The Theatre’ Meeting actors and audience

2018 ◽  
pp. 13-38
Author(s):  
N. Ceramella
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Detailed Account ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
The One

The article considers two versions of D. H. Lawrence’s essay The Theatre: the one which appeared in the English Review in September 1913 and the other one which Lawrence published in his first travel book Twilight in Italy (1916). The latter, considerably revised and expanded, contains a number of new observations and gives a more detailed account of Lawrence’s ideas.Lawrence brings to life the atmosphere inside and outside the theatre in Gargnano, presenting vividly the social structure of this small northern Italian town. He depicts the theatre as a multi-storey stage, combining the interpretation of the plays by Shakespeare, D’Annunzio and Ibsen with psychological portraits of the actors and a presentation of the spectators and their responses to the plays as distinct social groups.Lawrence’s views on the theatre are contextualised by his insights into cinema and its growing popularity.What makes this research original is the fact that it offers a new perspective, aiming to illustrate the social situation inside and outside the theatre whichLawrenceobserved. The author uses the material that has never been published or discussed before such as the handwritten lists of box-holders in Gargnano Theatre, which was offered to Lawrence and his wife Frieda by Mr. Pietro Comboni, and the photographs of the box-panels that decorated the theatre inLawrence’s time.

Empiricisms

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Allen
Keyword(s):  
John Dewey ◽  
Gilles Deleuze ◽  
William James ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Detailed Account ◽  
Chinese Tradition ◽  
Experimental Practice ◽  
European Philosophy ◽  
History Of

Empiricisms reassesses the values of experience and experiment in European philosophy and comparatively. It traces the history of empirical philosophy from its birth in Greek medicine to its emergence as a philosophy of modern science. A richly detailed account in Part I of history’s empiricisms establishes a context in Part II for reconsidering the work of the so-called radical empiricists—William James, Henri Bergson, John Dewey, and Gilles Deleuze, each treated in a dedicated chapter. What is “radical” about their work is to return empiricism from epistemology to the ontology and natural philosophy where it began. Empiricisms also sets empirical philosophy in conversation with Chinese tradition, considering technological, scientific, medical, and alchemical sources, as well as selected Confucian, Daoist, and Mohist classics. The work shows how philosophical reflection on experience and a profound experimental practice coexist in traditional China with no interaction or even awareness of each other. Empiricism is more multi-textured than philosophers tend to assume when we explain it to ourselves and to students. One purpose of Empiricisms is to recover the neglected context. A complementary purpose is to elucidate the value of experience and arrive at some idea of what is living and dead in philosophical empiricism.

Pāli

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John J. Lowe
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Account ◽  
Clear Picture ◽  
Clear Correlation ◽  
Early Form ◽  
Verbal System

This chapter provides a detailed account of the transitive noun and adjective categories attested in Pali. The Pali Tipitaka is the Theravada Buddhist canon, written in an early form of Middle Indo-Aryan of roughly contemporary date with Epic Sanskrit. There are relatively few transitive noun and adjective categories in Pali, but those there are provide a wealth of evidence for the phenomenon. The patterns seen in previous chapters are also found here: most importantly, there is a clear correlation between transitivity and predication. However, new patterns are also found, in particular a correlation between transitivity and animacy. In addition, Pali provides a clear picture of the adoption of transitivity by an action noun category, owing to the integration of one of its members into the verbal system as an infinitive.

Epic Sanskrit

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John J. Lowe
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Detailed Account ◽  
Clear Correlation ◽  
Detailed Review

This chapter provides a detailed account of the transitive noun and adjective categories attested in Epic Sanskrit. The major Sanskrit epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, provide a large body of data in a form of Sanskrit slightly later than Vedic Prose, and close to the ‘Classical’ Sanskrit language. There is considerably more evidence for transitive nouns and adjectives in the epics than in Vedic Prose, but compared with the Rigveda transitive nouns and adjectives are still less common, and show less morphological variety. Again, statistical analysis shows that there is a clear correlation between transitivity and predication. As in the two previous chapters, a number of characteristic stem forms are thoroughly examined and exemplified. Statistics for subject-oriented data precede a section on participles and a detailed review of situation-oriented nouns.

Vedic Prose

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John J. Lowe
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Detailed Account ◽  
Clear Correlation ◽  
Verbal System ◽  
Carry Over

This chapter provides a detailed account of the transitive noun and adjective categories attested in Vedic Prose. Although the Vedic Prose corpus is larger than that of the Rigveda, there are considerably fewer transitive noun/adjective categories, and relatively few transitive forms. The most commonly transitive adjective category may show some degree of integration into the verbal system as a modal formation. Statistical analysis shows that the patterns found in Rigvedic Sanskrit largely carry over into Vedic Prose. Again, there is a clear correlation between transitivity and predication. As before, different formations and types, occurring with varying frequency as transitive, are carefully examined and exemplified, including again situation-oriented nouns.

Responsibility, Authority, and the Bindingness of Norms

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bennett W. Helm
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Reactive Attitudes ◽  
Joint Commitment ◽  
Recognition Respect

In having reactive attitudes, we hold each other responsible to the norms of a community. Doing so appropriately presupposes both that one has the requisite authority and that the other is bound by that norm. We can understand this by turning to communities of respect and the patterns of reactive attitudes discussed in Chapter 3. As a member of a community of respect, one is party to a joint commitment, constituted by interpersonal rational patterns of reactive attitudes, to the import of that community and thereby to the import of its members and norms. This joint commitment binds one to those norms and makes one be responsible to them. Likewise, to have authority is to have dignity as a member of such a community and so be a fit object of recognition respect by others who thereby normally ought to respond to the “call” of one’s reactive attitudes.

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