The point of view of shared agency

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The point of view of shared agency
Glenda Satne & Johannes Roessler
To cite this article: Glenda Satne & Johannes Roessler (2024) The point of view of shared
agency, Inquiry, 67:4, 1009-1017, DOI: 10.1080/0020174X.2023.2287479
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2023.2287479
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The point of view of shared agency
Glenda Satne
a
and Johannes Roessler
b
a
University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia;
b
University of Warwick, Coventry, England
ABSTRACT
This paper introduces the special issue ’The point of view of shared agency’,a
collection of papers that develops, and critically assesses, a striking development
in recent philosophy of mind, epistemology, and developmental psychology, that
is, the fundamental reappraisal of the time-honoured distinction between a ‘first-
person’and a ‘third-person perspective’on our mental lives. In recent years, the
nature of the ‘second-person standpoint’has become a major focus of work
across a range of disciplines. More recently, the idea of ‘first-person plural
knowledge’, has received some attention, for example in considering
knowledge of what ‘we are doing’when we are doing things together. This
collection explores collective agency, self-knowledge, and knowledge of other
minds, from this plural and relational point of view.
ARTICLE HISTORY Received 20 November 2023; Accepted 21 November 2023
KEYWORDS collective agency; self-knowledge; knowledge of other minds
The aim of the proposed collection of essays is to explore a set of issues at
the intersection of three topics: collective agency, self-knowledge and
knowledge of other minds. A general question that is increasingly
asked, both in the psychological and philosophical literature, is how the
capacity to know and understand oneself and others is related to
various forms of human sociality (e.g. Heal 2003; Reddy 2008; Schilbach
et al. 2013; Lavin 2014; Avramides 2015; Satne and Roepstorff2015;
Satne 2021). A common theme in some recent work on knowledge of
other minds is that understanding the nature of such knowledge may
require discarding the traditional view that our perspective on the
mental lives of others is fundamentally spectatorial –grounded on, in
Reid’s(1764/1997) terms, ‘solitary operations of the mind’, such as
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDer-
ivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distri-
bution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered,
transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the
Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
CONTACT Glenda Satne gsatne@uow.edu.au School of Liberal Arts, Faculty of the Arts, Social
Sciences and Humanities, Building 19, Room 1089 - University of Wollongong NSW 2522 - Australia
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2024, VOL. 67, NO. 4, 1009–1017
https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2023.2287479

inferring the causes of observed behavior or direct observation. There is
growing interest in the idea that in explaining the capacity for social cog-
nition we have to make essential reference to the capacity for social inter-
action or ‘social operations of the mind’(ibid.). The collection of papers in
this special issue aims to help to articulate and assess that idea (all too
often left merely programmatic) by focusing on the epistemology of
shared agency and its bearing on the nature of social cognition.
Suppose you observe a number of people queuing and you then join the
queue. Putting together your observational knowledge ‘they are queuing’
and your first-person knowledge ‘I am queuing’, you might reflect ‘we are
queuing’. Compare and contrast this case: you are pushing a car with
others, a passer-by asks what (all of) you are up to, and you reply: ‘we
are pushing the car to the petrol station’. The latter, unlike the former,
is naturally described as an example of collective agency and as involving
a shared intention. How does this difference affect the explanation we
should be giving of the kind of knowledge expressed by your first-
person plural statement? Is the knowledge still based on putting two
things together –observational knowledge of their engagement, and
first-person singular knowledge of your own engagement, in the shared
activity? Or does the knowledge have a unitary explanation? Does it
reflect a distinctive first-person plural perspective? Specifically: should
we think of it as a plural version of what Anscombe called ‘practical knowl-
edge’or ‘knowledge in intention’? (See Stoutland 2008; Laurence 2011;
Schmid 2016).
We can distinguish two kinds of scepticism these latter suggestions are
liable to meet with. One stems from traditional reductive aspirations in
the theory of collective agency. The idea here, roughly, is that appeal to
(unreduced) plural intentions, let alone plural knowledge, is metaphysi-
cally extravagant and in any case lacks a convincing rationale. A more
subtle sceptical response may be motivated by recent work on the
‘second-person perspective’(See for example Conant and Rödl 2014;
Eilan 2014.). This response would agree that (certain kinds of) collective
agency involve distinctive forms of thought that cannot be captured in
terms of third-person and first-person-singular thinking alone. What it
challenges is the idea that first-person plural thoughts and knowledge
play an irreducible role here, one that cannot be explained in terms of
first- and second-person thoughts and knowledge. Both kinds of scepti-
cism require sustained consideration. To assess the idea of plural
1010 G. SATNE AND J. ROESSLER

intentions, and plural ‘knowledge in intention’, we would need an
account of the kinds of reasons, and reasoning, that would make posses-
sion of such intentions intelligible. We would also need an account of the
work that they do –the supposedly irreducible role they play in explain-
ing action and knowledge. In turn, there are questions about the sense, if
any, in which the idea of plural practical knowledge would present a chal-
lenge, and alternative, to the traditional spectatorial approach to knowl-
edge of other minds. A central concern here must arguably be the nature
of human forms of communication. Some such forms may be said to be
indispensable for human social cognition, and among these, some may
be said to involve shared intention and ‘knowledge in intention’. This
would be one way to argue for a strong connection between shared
agency and the capacity to know and understand others. Whether this
or any other way of making such connections is defensible is one of
the large issues to be explored, from different perspectives, in the pro-
posed collection.
As a whole, this collection of papers further develops and critical
assesses a striking development in recent philosophy of mind, epistem-
ology and developmental psychology, that is, the fundamental reappraisal
of the time-honoured distinction between a ‘first-person’and a ‘third-
person perspective’on our mental lives. Few would deny that there is
some such distinction to be drawn, but it is no longer taken to be
obvious that the distinction is exhaustive or that it helps to make sense
of the rich variety of the social knowledge we actually seem to have. The
nature of the ‘second-person standpoint’has become a major focus of
work across a range of disciplines. And some consideration has recently
been given to the idea of ‘first-person plural knowledge’, for example
knowledge of what ‘we are doing’when we are doing things together.
The aim of the proposed special issue is to contribute to a better under-
standing of some of the difficult issues raised by this ‘interpersonal turn’in
work on social cognition. Most of the papers in the collection develop
from presentations that were given at two workshops held under the aus-
pices of a British Academy sponsored project on ‘Joint practical knowl-
edge’, led by Glenda Satne and Johannes Roessler. The authors bring a
variety of background interests to the issues discussed in the collection,
including interests in the nature of collective intentionality, the epistem-
ology of other minds, the semantics of ‘you’and ‘we’, the nature of com-
munication, and the human capacity for social learning. The collection
thus provides various perspectives not only on how to explain the
social knowledge involved in shared agency, but also on the wider
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significance of such knowledge, for example vis-à-vis explanations of
shared agency itself, or communication, or social learning, or knowing
other people.
The papers can be grouped into three overlapping sets. First, there are
papers that address questions concerning the nature of shared agency, or
specific varieties of shared agency.
Tom Crowther explores such questions from the unusual point of view
of the ontology of shared agency, a point of view that, so he argues,
reveals some difficulties with Bratman’s recent version of an ‘individualist’
analysis. A number of papers discuss what it means to share intentions,
and explore various kinds of broadly non-individualist proposals, appeal-
ing to ‘normative structures of practical reasoning’(Satne) or to shared
practical reasoning in face-to-face communication (Roessler).
Second, a number of papers discuss what might be called the epistemic
role of mutual engagement. Few would disagree that social cognition
informs or even makes possible shared activities. What is less obvious is
that capacities for shared agency should be given a substantive explana-
tory role in our account of social cognition. One rationale for doing so, dis-
cussed in Anita Avramides’s paper, turns on discontent with traditional
approaches to our knowledge of other minds, on which such knowledge
must be intelligible in terms of detached third-person relations such as
observation or theorizing about the causes of observed behavior. As Avra-
mides puts it, we should seek an ‘account of our knowledge of others that
has us engaging with each other as persons.’Another rationale derives
from reflection on the nature of shared agency. Anscombe argued that,
contrary to modern epistemology’s‘incorrigibly contemplative conception
of knowledge’, the knowledge one has of what one is intentionally doing is
not a matter of observation (or any other mode of discovery); rather it is
‘practical knowledge’or ‘knowledge in intention’. A number of papers
explore and probe the suggestion (mooted by Stoutland 2008 and Laur-
ence 2011) that an analogous point holds for shared intentional activities:
understanding the epistemology of our knowledge of what we are doing
(at least in certain cases of shared agency) requires understanding how it
is possible for us to have shared ‘knowledge in intention’. The papers by
Satne, and Roessler present different versions of that general idea; the con-
tribution by Longworth critically discuss some of its commitments.
A third set of papers deal with questions about the nature of communi-
cation. Naomi Eilan argues for a ‘second-person’view, on which ‘the dis-
tinctively human form of communication requires adoption of attitudes of
mutual address, in which people are aware of each other as ‘you’, and she
1012 G. SATNE AND J. ROESSLER

contrasts this with Tomasello’s view of ‘communication as collaboration’.
Andrea Kern and Henrike Moll also invoke a distinctive form of social cog-
nition in trying to understand what is distinctive about the human
capacity for social learning. That capacity, they argue, is both ‘intrinsically
self-conscious’and ‘bipolar’.
Titles and abstracts
Practical knowledge and shared agency: pluralizing the
Anscombean view –Satne
For Anscombe a solitary activity is intentional if the agent has self-knowl-
edge of what she is doing. Analogously one might think that to partake in
shared intentional activities is for the agents involved to have plural or
collective self-knowledge of what they are doing together. I call this
‘the Plural Practical Knowledge Thesis’(PPK). While some authors have
advanced related theses about the nature of the knowledge involved in
shared practical activities, this alternative remains relatively underex-
plored in the current literature. The paper offers an account of plural prac-
tical knowledge based on the idea that shared activities of the relevant
sort share a normative structure given by practical, means-end structures
and proposes a paradigmatic methodology that generalizes this account
to understand what different cases of collective intentional action have in
common. It then discusses the differences between the proposed
approach and those due to Schmid 2016 and Laurence 2011and the
reasons why it should be preferred.
Sharing non-observational knowledge –Longworth
One can know without observation what one is up to, but can one know
without observation what someone else is up to? I explore two strategies
for defending the claim that one can. The first strategy relies on the fact
that one can know what someone is doing by accepting what they tell
one about what they are doing. It proposes that testimony can preserve
the credentials of a piece of knowledge so that if a benefactor has non-
observational knowledge, then a recipient of their testimony can
acquire non-observational knowledge by accepting it. The second strat-
egy appeals to the existence of collective activities. It proposes that
where a number of people engage in a collective activity, each can
know what each is up to, and that knowledge can be had without obser-
vation. My goal is to set out both strategies. A secondary aim is to suggest
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grounds for greater optimism about the prospects of the first strategy
than the second.
Plural practical knowledge –Roessler
The paper examines the thesis that participants in shared intentional
activities have first-person plural ‘practical knowledge’of what they are
jointly doing, in the sense of ‘practical knowledge’articulated by G.E.M
Anscombe. Who is supposed to be the subject of such knowledge? The
group, or members of the group, or both? It is argued that progress
with this issue requires conceiving of collective activities (of the kind
affording ‘plural practical knowledge’)as instances, not of supra-personal
agency, but of interpersonal agency; specifically: as involving communi-
cation. There is a sense, it is suggested, in which the basic form of
plural practical knowledge is relational: ‘I am doing x with you.’
I think, Smith thinks –Rödl
It has been recognized that ‘I think a is F’, considered as a predicative
statement, is peculiar. The peculiarity comes out in Moore’s paradox, ‘a
is F, but I do not think it is’. This statement appears afflicted by an
inner tension. But if the logical form of ‘I think a is F’is that of a predicative
statement, then it is hard to discern a tension in what is said. The corre-
lative statement ‘Mrs. Smith thinks a is F’appears to be free from
peculiarity. There seems to be no tension in ‘a is F; but Mrs. Smith
thinks it is not’. Hence lining up ‘I think a is F’with ‘Mrs. Smith thinks a
is F’we can retain our understanding of the former as predicative. This
essay will bring out that ‘Mrs. Smith thinks a is F’is, if anything, more
peculiar than ‘I think a is F’, and that, should we have been inclined to
think of the latter as a predicative statement, consideration of ‘Mrs.
Smith thinks a is F’must disabuse us of this idea.
Other I’s communication, and the second person –Eilan
Why do we think there are other self-conscious about, other thinkers of ‘I’
thoughts, other possessors of a first-person perspective? What is the most
basic manifestation of our grip on their existence? This paper develops an
answer to these questions summarized under the heading: Second Person
Communication Claim (SPCC), which says: Our grip on the idea that other
self-conscious subjects exist is rooted in our capacity to enter into
1014 G. SATNE AND J. ROESSLER

particular kinds of communicative relations with others, in which we adopt
attitudes of mutual address and think of each other as ‘you’. If the SPCC is
right, our grip on the existence and nature of other I’s, and on their relation
to ourselves, rests essentially on a practical capacity to treat others as part-
ners in conversation, addressors and addressees, with all that this entails.
This contrasts with the traditional approach to other minds, on which
our knowledge and thought of others rests on observation and is essen-
tially third personal and theoretical.
Knowing others as persons –Avramides
Philosophers have struggled with the problem of knowing others. The
emphasis is often on the knowing here. In this paper, I want to concen-
trate on our conception of what is known (i.e. a person). I shall argue
that we should aim to give an account of our knowledge of others that
has us engaging with each other as persons. I shall argue that there is a
perceptual account of our knowledge of others that has this result.
Learning from another –Moll/Kern
Learning is a capacity whereby an individual undergoes a distinctive kind
of change: a change of what she is able to think or do, a change either in the
scope or quality of her capacities. It is widely held that the capacity for
learning takes a unique shape in humans and differs from how non-
human animals learn. This view is popular among philosophers, psycholo-
gists, and anthropologists. In spite of the wide agreement about its unique-
ness, it remains unclear what exactly it is about human learning that makes
it special. In this article, we take an Aristotelian approach and argue that the
uniqueness of human learning can only be understood against the back-
ground of the human form of life. This form of life is characterized by a
self-conscious relation between the form of life and its bearers. Learning
is the form of the development from immature to mature bearers of the
human form of life and carries the following three characteristics: It is
second-personal, its content is general, and the learner’s relation to the
knowledge or the capacities she acquires is reflective.
Temporal ontology and joint action –Crowther
The aim of the paper is to describe the temporal ontology of that basic
manifestation of social agency that is the living of life together. The
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distinction between states, processes and events is clarified. There are
notions of ‘doing things together’that fall into each of these temporal cat-
egories. The ontology of the state of friendship is examined as one
instance of living life together. Friendship is a state of community
between agents that is sustained by a continuity of processes and
events that are characteristic manifestations of the state, some (but not
all) of which are processes of doing things together. The continuity of pro-
cesses and events involved in friendship is distinctive in lacking a telic
point. Further instances of shared life that possess this characteristic tem-
poral structure are described. It is argued that this notion of a mode of
shared life cannot be recovered from various kinds of temporally
extended agential structures that are the ingredients of Michael Bratman’s
work on shared agency. In so doing, I clarify the notion of a shared life and
make a case for the fruitfulness of approaching questions about joint
action from the perspective of work on the ontology of time occupation.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
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