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93Collective Belief, Kuhn, and the String Theory CommunityIn Michael S. Brady & Miranda Fricker (eds.), The Epistemic Life of Groups, Oxford University Press. pp. 191-217. 2016.One of us [Gilbert, M.. “Collective Belief and Scientific Change.” Sociality and Responsibility. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. 37-49.] has proposed that ascriptions of beliefs to scientific communities generally involve a common notion of collective belief described by her in numerous places. A given collective belief involves a joint commitment of the parties, who thereby constitute what Gilbert refers to as a plural subject. Assuming that this interpretive hypothesis is correct, and that s…Read more
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3Considerations on joint commitment: Responses to various commentsIn Georg Meggle (ed.), Social Facts and Collective Intentionality. Philosophische Forschung / Philosophical research, Dr. Hänsel-hohenhausen. pp. 1--73. 2002.
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1070Walking Together: A Paradigmatic Social PhenomenonMidwest Studies in Philosophy 15 (1): 1-14. 1990.The everyday concept of a social group is approached by examining the concept of going for a walk together, an example of doing something together, or "shared action". Two analyses requiring shared personal goals are rejected, since they fail to explain how people walking together have obligations and rights to appropriate behavior, and corresponding rights of rebuke. An alternative account is proposed: those who walk together must constitute the "plural subject" of a goal. The nature of plural …Read more
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187A Theory of Political Obligation: Membership, Commitment, and the Bonds of SocietyOxford University Press. 2006.Does one have special obligations to support the political institutions of one’s own country precisely because it is one’s own? In short, does one have political obligations? This book argues for an affirmative answer, construing one’s country as a political society of which one is a member, and a political society as a special type of social group. The obligations in question are not moral requirements derived from general moral principles. They come, rather, from one’s participation in a speci…Read more
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521Shared intention and personal intentionsPhilosophical Studies 144 (1). 2009.This article explores the question: what is it for two or more people to intend to do something in the future? In a technical phrase, what is it for people to share an intention ? Extending and refining earlier work of the author’s, it argues for three criteria of adequacy for an account of shared intention (the disjunction, concurrence, and obligation criteria) and offers an account that satisfies them. According to this account, in technical terms explained in the paper, people share an intent…Read more
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152Rationality, coordination, and conventionSynthese 84 (1). 1990.Philosophers using game-theoretical models of human interactions have, I argue, often overestimated what sheer rationality can achieve. (References are made to David Gauthier, David Lewis, and others.) In particular I argue that in coordination problems rational agents will not necessarily reach a unique outcome that is most preferred by all, nor a unique 'coordination equilibrium' (Lewis), nor a unique Nash equilibrium. Nor are things helped by the addition of a successful precedent, or by comm…Read more
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378Modelling collective beliefSynthese 73 (1): 185-204. 1987.What is it for a group to believe something? A summative account assumes that for a group to believe that p most members of the group must believe that p. Accounts of this type are commonly proposed in interpretation of everyday ascriptions of beliefs to groups. I argue that a nonsummative account corresponds better to our unexamined understanding of such ascriptions. In particular I propose what I refer to as the joint acceptance model of group belief. I argue that group beliefs according to th…Read more
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Paul BloomfieldIn Paul Bloomfield (ed.), Morality and Self-Interest, Oxford University Press. 2008.
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