Methodological Individualism, the We-mode, and Team Reasoning

Raimo Tuomela is one of the pioneers of social action theory and has done as much as anyone over the last thirty years to advance the study of social action and collective intentionality. Social Ontology: Collective Intentionality and Group Agents (2013) presents the latest version of his theory and applications to a range of important social phenomena. The book covers so much ground, and so many important topics in detailed discussions, that it would impossible in a short space to do it even partial justice. In this brief note, I will concentrate on a single, though important, theme in the book, namely, the claim that we must give up methodological individualism in the social sciences and embrace instead irreducibly group notions. I wish to defend methodological individualism as up to the theoretical tasks of the social sciences while acknowledging what is distinctive about the social world and collective intentional action. Tuomela frames the question of the adequacy of methodological individualism in terms of a contrast between what he calls the I-mode and the we-mode. He argues that we-mode phenomena are not reducible to I-mode phenomena, and concludes that we must reject methodological individualism. I will argue that the irreducibility of the we-mode to the I-mode, given how the contrast is set up, does not entail the rejection of methodological individualism. In addition, I will argue that the three conditions that Tuomela places on genuine we-mode activities, the group reason, collectivity, and collective commitment conditions, if they are understood in a way that does not beg the question, can plausibly be satisfied by a reductive account. Finally, I will argue that the specific considerations advanced in the book do not give us reason to think that a reductive account cannot be adequate to the descriptive and explanatory requirements of a theory of the social worl

The irreducibility of collective obligations

Individualists claim that collective obligations are reducible to the individual obligations of the collective's members. Collectivists deny this. We set out to discover who is right by way of a deontic logic of collective action that models collective actions, abilities, obligations, and their interrelations. On the basis of our formal analysis, we argue that when assessing the obligations of an individual agent, we need to distinguish individual obligations from member obligations. If a collective has a collective obligation to bring about a particular state of affairs, then it might be that no individual in the collective has an individual obligation to bring about that state of affairs. What follows from a collective obligation is that each member of the collective has a member obligation to help ensure that the collective fulfills its collective obligation. In conclusion, we argue that our formal analysis supports collectivism

Globalising assessment: an ethnography of literacy assessment, camels and fast food in the Mongolian Gobi

What happens when standardised literacy assessments travel globally? The paper presents an ethnographic account of adult literacy assessment events in rural Mongolia. It examines the dynamics of literacy assessment in terms of the movement and re-contextualisation of test items as they travel globally and are received locally by Mongolian respondents. The analysis of literacy assessment events is informed by Goodwin’s ‘participation framework’ on language as embodied and situated interactive phenomena and by Actor Network Theory. Actor Network Theory (ANT) is applied to examine literacy assessment events as processes of translation shaped by an ‘assemblage’ of human and non-human actors (including the assessment texts)

No Rest for the Wicked? Symposium on Irene McMullin’s Existential Flourishing

Irene McMullin’s Existential Flourishing (Cambridge University Press, 2018) weaves together virtue ethics and existential phenomenology: the influence of Heidegger and Levinas, in particular, is clear throughout. This paper provides a summary of McMullin’s elegantly argued position and raises a number of possible concerns, particularly regarding the interaction of Aristotelian and Phenomenological assumptions. I focus specifically on the role of the 2nd-person perspective, on the links between exemplars and socialisation, and on the problem of those who, as Nietzsche put it, “are both evil and happy – a species on which the moralists are silent”

Bringing me more than I contain … Discourse, Subjectivity and the Scene of Teaching in Totality and Infinity

This paper explores the relationship between language, subjectivity and teaching in Emmanuel Levinas’s 'Totality and Infinity.' It aims to elucidate Levinas’s presentation of language as always already predicated on a relationship of responsibility towards that which is beyond the self, and the idea that it is only in this condition of being responsible that we are subjects. Levinas suggests that the relation with the Other through which I am a subject as one uniquely responsible is also the scene of teaching. Through examining these ethical conditions of subjectivity, I suggest that this notion of the self as oriented towards the Other in a relation of passivity presents a challenge to many of the standard topoi of teaching and learning and invite us to consider the nature of teaching in a provocative new manner

On Affect: Function and Phenomenology

This paper explores the nature of emotions by considering what appear to be two differing, perhaps even conflicting, approaches to affectivity—an evolutionary functional account, on the one hand, and a phenomenological view, on the other. The paper argues for the centrality of the notion of function in both approaches, articulates key differences between them, and attempts to understand how such differences can be overcome

Understanding tensions and identifying clinician agreement on improvements to early-stage chronic kidney disease monitoring in primary care : a qualitative study

Funding This article presents independent research funded by the National Institute for Health Research School for Primary Care Research (NIHR SPCR) (reference:120). JE was also supported by the NIHR Programme Grants for Applied Research programme (Reference: RP-PG-1210-12012). DSL and LL are supported by the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research CentrePeer reviewedPublisher PD

Lissitzky : new materialism and diagrammatic living

Lissitsky\u27s spatial and architectural work anticipates the contemporary fascination with expanded fields of activity that have resulted in transdisciplinary approaches to research and the role of practice-led research. This paper will discuss Lissitzky\u27s suprematist perspective in relation to contemporary practices - under the rubric of the &quot;diagram&quot; - that re-imagine and enact the relationship between the built surround and embodied cognition. Lissitzky\u27s work will serve as the starting point for a discussion of contemporary practitioners and theorists working across philosophy, cognitive science and built environment in order to draw out, through the act of diagramming, life on new terms.<br /

Social Solidarity and the Ontological Foundations of Exclusionary Nationalism: Durkheim and Levinas on the Historical Manifestations of Authoritarian Populism

This paper seeks to explore the dynamics of contemporary authoritarian populism from a historical perspective, relying on the approaches of Durkheim’s experimental sociology and Levinas’s ethical phenomenology. By reading the works of these two thinkers in concert, a pathology is exposed within this particular form of politics in that the State must necessarily close itself off to the critique of exteriority. Our reading of Durkheim explores the social pathology of nationalism while our reading of Levinas demonstrates the philosophical dimension of this pathology as the inevitable outcome of any philosophical thinking which privileges ontology above all else. The way these thinkers address these themes can serve as a guide as we attempt to overcome the same pathology today in various forms of authoritarian populism that adopt the same mentalities and methods utilized by past forms of this corrupted idealism

Limit Conditions in an Encounter of Theology with Neuroscience

Insofar as theology is responsible to its religious sources, it seeks to answer religious questions, such as, for Christians, \"What must I do to be saved?\" However, theology also involves asking whether such a question is the right one at all. This essay attempts an innovative approach to this question by investigating the intelligibility of \"the soul.\" Much recent neurobiology suggests that, even if a defensible notion of soul can be presented, it is unclear that it would allow meaningful talk about salvation