Raimo Tuomela

Social ontology : collective intentionality and group agents

Preface Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Groups and We-Thinking Chapter 3: Collective Intentions Chapter 4: Acting for Social Reasons Chapter 5: Collective Acceptance and the Formation of Group Attitudes Chapter 6: Cooperation and Authority Chapter 7: We-Reasoning in Game-Theoretic Context Chapter 8: Institutional Facts and Institutions Chapter 9: Group Solidarity: All for One and One for All References Index

Socializing epistemology : the social dimensions of knowledge

Chapter 1 Socializing Epistemology: An Introduction Through Two Sample Issues Chapter 2 Belief-Forming Practices and the Social Chapter 3 Egoism in Epistemology Chapter 4 Speaking of Ghosts Chapter 5 A Conservative Approach to Social Epistemology Chapter 6 Contrasting Conceptions of Social Epistemology Chapter 7 The Fate of Knowledge in Social Theories of Science Chapter 8 Good Arguments Chapter 9 Accuracy in Journalism: An Economic Approach Chapter 10 A More Social Epistemology Chapter 11 Remarks on Collective Belief Chapter 12 The Justification of Group Beliefs Chapter 13 Bibliography

Theoretical concepts and hypothetico-inductive inference

1. Theoretical concepts and inductive Inference.- 1. Problems of Inductive Systematization: the Transitivity Dilemma.- 2. Inductive Systematization Established by Theories.- 3. A Logical Framework for the Dynamics of Conceptual Change and Induction.- 2. Hintikkas Two-Dimensional Continuum of Inductive Logic.- 1. Summary of Hintikkas Two-dimensional Continuum.- 2. The Treatment of Incomplete Evidence.- 3. Inductive Probabilities of Weak Generalizations.- 1. Probabilities in the Observational Language.- 2. Evidential Theoretical Concepts.- 3. Non-Evidential Theoretical Concepts.- 4. Inductive Probabilities of Strong Generalizations.- 5. Piecewise Definable Theoretical Concepts.- 6. Epistemic Utilities and Inductive Systematization.- 1. Measures of Information and Systematic Power.- 2. Expected Epistemic Utilities of Generalizations.- 3. Competing Generalizations.- 7. Theoretical Concepts and Inductive Explanation.- 1. Explanatory Power of Theories.- 2. Inductive Explanation Illustrated.- 3. Positive Inductive Relevance, Supersessance, and Screening Off.- 4. Inductive Explanation within Hintikkas System.- 8. Corroboration and Theoretical Concepts.- 1. Theoretical and Observational Support.- 2. Measures of Corroboration Based on Positive Inductive Relevance.- 3. Hintikkas Measure of Corroboration.- 9. The Logical Indispensability of Theoretical Concepts within Inductive Systematization.- 1. The Theoreticians Dilemma: Methodological Instrumentalism Refuted.- 2. Logical Indispensability and Positive Inductive Relevance.- 3. Logical Indispensability and Rules of Acceptance.- 10. Linguistic Variance in Inductive Logic.- 1. Linguistic Invariance and Linguistic Variance.- 2. Probability Kinematics.- 3. Goodmans New Riddle of Induction.- 11. Towards a Non-Inductivist Logic of Induction.- 1. Deductivism and Inductivism.- 2. Hypothetico-Deductive and Hypothetico-Inductive Inference.- 3. The Atheoretical Thesis.- 4. Converse Deduction and Indirect Support.- 5. Conjectures.

Belief versus acceptance

Abstract In this paper the problem of the relation between belief and acceptance is discussed in view of recent literature on the topic. Belief and acceptance are characterized in terms of a number of properties, which show both the similarities and the dissimilarities between these notions. In particular it is claimed — contrary to some recently expressed views — that acceptance need not be intentional action and that the differences between belief and acceptance do not boil down to the simple view that acceptance, contrary to belief, is based on the agents direct exercise of his will. Acceptance which is not based on intentional action is shown in the paper to be especially closely related to belief, especially to linguistic belief. Thus if a person is in a non‐intentional‐ly acquired and held state of acceptance that something p, he also believes that p. Another general difference is that acceptance is language‐dependent while there can be non‐linguistic belief. Collective beliefs and acceptances are also briefly discussed in the paper Among other things, it is noted that the notion of wide as contrasted with truth‐oriented, narrow acceptance is central in the collective case.

TWO KINDS OF WE-REASONING

People sometimes think in terms of ‘we’ referring to a group they belong to. When making decisions, they frame the decision problem as: ‘What should we do?’ instead of ‘What should I do?’. We study one particular approach to such ‘we-reasoning’, economist Michael Bacharachs theory of ‘team reasoning’, and relate it to philosopher Raimo Tuomelas distinction between ‘I-mode’ reasoning and ‘we-mode’ reasoning. We argue that these theories complement each other: Tuomelas philosophical theory provides a conceptual framework augmenting Bacharachs theory, and Bacharachs mathematical results support Tuomelas view on the irreducibility of the we-mode to the I-mode. We-mode reasoning can explain some kinds of human cooperative behaviour left unexplained by standard game theory. Standard game theory is not well-equipped to deal with we-mode reasoning but it can be extended by the methods developed by Bacharach. However, we argue that both standard game theory and Bacharachs theory require more attention to the information-sharing stages that precede actual decision making, and we describe a stage-based model of we-reasoning.

Collective acceptance and collective social notions

In recent philosophical and sociological literature, two important features of sociality in collective contexts have been emphasized by authors such as Barnes (1983), Bloor (1996), Kusch (1997), and Searle (1995). First, many social things and their characteristics are performatively created by “us” (group members). 1 For example, we may collectively bring about that certain pieces of metal qualify as money. Second, some central collective and social concepts have been regarded as reflexive in roughly the sense indicated by saying that money is not money unless collectively accepted to be money. Although the features of performativity and reflexivity have been discussed earlier (especially outside philosophy), little attempt has been made at giving a precise analysis. 2 Our account adds a third feature of sociality, the collective availability or “forgroupness” of collective social items. In this paper, we offer a precise analysis, a model of “collective sociality”, including the two features of performativeness and reflexivity. We speak of collective sociality, or of the collective-social features of things, rather than merely of “collectivity” or “sociality” here. This is because there are many kinds of things called social (e.g., thinking of other people) which need not be collective, and there are collective activities which are not social. Recall Weber’s example of people in the street simultaneously opening their umbrellas when it starts to rain – this is a non-socialcollective action. Basically, the predicate ‘collective’ in a pure sense applies to collections of people and their features. The predicate ‘social’ in contrast applies to mental (and other) interrelations between individuals. 3 What is more, we will be interested in the man-made or socially constructed aspects of the social world. The intersection of collective, social and constructed aspects forms the set of social features or properties that we will be interested in below. This we find analysandumwhich is intuitively

Towards a General Theory of Auxiliary Concepts and Definability in First-Order Theories

There is a fairly extensive philosophical and methodological literature dealing with the role of auxiliary (‘theoretical’) terms in scientific theories. In this literature, logical and foundational ideas play a surprisingly small role, despite the wealth of results concerning definability and related concepts which logicians have established. Virtually the only non-trivial result cited is Craig’s (general) elimination theorem, and the purpose in bringing it up is all too often to deny its relevance. The possible importance of Craig’s less general, but in certain respects more informative, interpolation theorem has not caught the fancy of philosophers of science, whose store of systematic logical results and techniques seems to be often rather restricted.

Deductive Explanation of Scientific Laws

Since the appearance of Hempel’s and Oppenheim’s famous paper (1948) on the logic of scientific explanation a lively discussion has been going on concerning the logical criteria of adequacy for the explanation of singular events (states of affairs, processes, etc.). However, the theoretically much more important topic of the logic of the explanation of scientific laws has been neglected to a great extent in recent discussion. Notable exceptions to this claim are the works by Campbell (1920), Nagel (1961), Bunge (1967), and partly the recent articles by Ackermann (1965), Ackermann and Stenner (1966) and Omer (1970). Furthermore, in the debate between the representatives of the (or a) two-level picture of science (e.g. Hempel, Feigl) and the ‘omnitheoreticians’ (e.g. Feyerabend, Kuhn) the logical aspects of the explanation of (empirical) laws and theories by more developed theories has been treated to some extent. In any case the discussion on the explanation of laws has in general lacked the formal rigour and sophistication characteristic of the discussion of the explanation of singular events.

Collective and joint intention

The paper discussed and analyzes collective and joint intentions of various strength. Thus there are subjectively shared collective intentions and intersubjectively shared collective intentions as well as collective intentions which are objectively and intersubjectively shared. The distinction between collective and private intentions is considered from several points of view. Especially, it is emphasized that collective intentions in the full sense are in the “we-mode”, whereas private intentions are in the “I-mode”. The paper also surveys recent discussion in the literature concerning the nature of collective and joint intention and defends the authors accounts against criticisms.

Social Institutions, Norms, and Practices

We submit a model of social institutions which binds together the two central components of institutions, a) a “behavioral” system of social practices as repeated patterns of collective intentional actions and b) the normative Ueberbau consisting of a task-right system which on the one hand is influenced and in basic cases even induced by the “underlying” practices and on the other hand serves to stabilize them. An explicit and relatively simple connection in terms of sanctions is drawn between actions which are obligatory or permitted by special positions on the one hand and the “ordinary” course of actions which occurs in social practices within an institution on the other hand. Obligations and rights are not simply bound to actions, but to systems of actions given in the form of systems of social practices. This adds an essential component which has been neglected in formal treatments so far. The inclusion of social practices yields a rich structure in which the emergence and maintenance of of norms can be tackled in a realistic way.