Evolutionarily Primitive Social Entities

Abstract

Social entities only exist in virtue of collective acceptance or recognition, or acknowledgement by two or more individuals in the context of joint activities. Joint activities are made possible by the coordination of plans for action, and the coordination of plans for action is made possible by the capacity for collective intentionality. This paper investigates how primitive is the capacity that nonhuman animals have to create social entities, by individuating how primitive is the capacity for collective intentionality. I present a novel argument for the evolutionary primitiveness of social entities, by showing that the collective intentions upon which these social entities are created and shared are metaphysically reducible to the relevant individual intentions.

Full text

Vol.:(0123456789)
Philosophia
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-025-00841-w
Evolutionarily Primitive Social Entities
AngelicaKaufmann1
Received: 26 June 2024 / Revised: 31 March 2025 / Accepted: 7 April 2025
© The Author(s) 2025
Abstract
Social entities only exist in virtue of collective acceptance or recognition, or
acknowledgement by two or more individuals in the context of joint activities. Joint
activities are made possible by the coordination of plans for action, and the coordi-
nation of plans for action is made possible by the capacity for collective intention-
ality. This paper investigates how primitive is the capacity that nonhuman animals
have to create social entities, by individuating how primitive is the capacity for col-
lective intentionality. I present a novel argument for the evolutionary primitiveness
of social entities, by showing that the collective intentions upon which these social
entities are created and shared are metaphysically reducible to the relevant individ-
ual intentions.
Keywords Social entities· Collective intentionality· Intention· Action planning·
Mental content
1 Introduction
The European Community, the Venice International Film Festival, the Vatican, the
NBA, and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra are all social entities. And so, this
paper argues, are the coalitions that get established during the hunting practices
among the chimpanzee populations of the Taï Forest, in the Ivory Coast (Boesch &
Boesch - Achermann, 2000; Kaufmann, 2020). These chimpanzees, like other pri-
mates, behave in a distinctively sophisticated way: they act jointly. But do these coa-
litions possess the characteristics necessary for being a social entity? The question at
issue in this paper is: can nonhuman animals create social entities?
Scholars in social ontology have debated over the primitiveness of collective
intentionality. Searle (1995, 2010) argued that certain features of the capacity to
* Angelica Kaufmann
angelica.kaufmann@gmail.com
1 Cognition inAction Unit, PHILAB, Philosophy Department, University ofMilan, Via Festa del
Perdono, 7, 20122Milano, Italy
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Philosophia
establish social entities are primitive in two ways: first, collective intentionality
is evolutionarily primitive, that is, animal species other than humans create and
share—at least rudimentary—social entities; secondly, collective intentionality is
metaphysically primitive, that is, these social entities are created and shared upon
collective intentions which are irreducible to individual distal intentions (Searle,
1990).
Researchers in developmental and comparative psychology found Searle’s notion
of collective intention captivating (Rakoczy & Tomasello, 2007; Tomasello, 2014).
And by embracing this notion, they advocate that the capacity to share intention, and
then to create social entities, is uniquely human.
In this paper I argue that Searle’s two senses of primitive should be analysed sep-
arately. I defend his argument for the primitiveness of the capacity for collective
intentionality in the first sense but not in the second sense: I argue that (1) collective
intentionality exists among nonhuman animals but (2) it is constructed and shared
upon collective intentions which are reducible to individual intentions (Bratman,
2014). I also argue that the reduction of collective intentions to individual intentions
is necessary for nonhuman animals to be able to create social entities.
This novel proposal is articulated both on conceptual and on empirical grounds
drawing on Michael Bratman’s “augmented individualist” account of shared
agency,1 and on Christophe Boesch’s cognitive ethology research on chimpanzee
group behaviour respectively. Throughout the paper I describe the advantages of
framing Boesch’s findings within Bratman’s account. In addition, recent studies sup-
port the view offered in this paper that chimpanzees have a significant understand-
ing of each other actions and plans (Buttelman etal., 2017; Duguid & Melis, 2020;
Heesen etal., 2021; Melis & Tomasello, 2019).
This paper is structured as follows. First, I present Searle’s account of collective
intentionality, and, secondly, I discuss how, Rakoczy and Tomasello (2007) criti-
cally consider Searle’s view as an over-ascription of certain cognitive faculties to
nonhuman creatures. Even if this is not overtly stated in their paper, I infer that the
over-ascription of cognitive faculties that they are criticising concerns the capac-
ity for conceptual thinking that is needed to create and share collective intentions.2
However, Searle (2010) argues again for the primitiveness of the capacity for col-
lective intentionality. I shall explain why their criticism that Searle is over-ascribing
certain cognitive capacities to nonhuman animals is a legitimate objection, but it is
unconvincingly discussed, and a similar stance reiterated in more recent works by
Tomasello (2016, 2020). For this reason, thirdly, I am going to explain how Searle’s
argument for the primitiveness of collective intentionality can be articulated differ-
ently: arguably, (1) language and conceptual thought are interdependent, and since
non-linguistic animals are capable of thought, it follows that non-linguistic ani-
mals can entertain mental states with a non-conceptual content; (2) since the sort
1 In Bratman (2014) it is explained that a shared intention is an interpersonal structure of related indi-
vidual intentions, that jointly serve to coordinate action planning.
2 The confirmation that my interpretation of their criticism is correct and up to date can be found in
Tomasello (2014), especially at pp. 46, 47, 136, 138, 140.
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Philosophia
of mental states that are involved in those joint activities that instantiate collective
intentionality can be non-conceptual in content, then non-linguistic animals are
capable of entertaining mental states that can establish social entities. I shall call this
the Capacity-based Dependency View (CBDV).
Thus, collective intentionality is evolutionarily primitive: social entities exist
among nonhuman animals, but they are constructed and shared upon collective
intentions, which are reducible to individual intentions. The latter can be created and
shared by creatures that lack the mastery of linguistic capacities. I shall introduce
a new—primitive—social entity: call this a hunting team. I’m going to analyse Taï
Chimpanzees’ group hunting (Boesch & Boesch - Achermann, 2000) in the light of
this concept. By relying on the Planning Theory (Bratman, 2014), I shall explain
that the phenomenon of group hunting, and presumably the joint activities of other
primates (as recent evidence shows and I will discuss) can be understood as a case
of ascription of individual intentions with meshing sub-plans that instantiate a social
entity.
Field work on Taï chimpanzee group behaviour brings robust evidence to explore
Searle’s intuition that collective intentionality exists in different animal species and,
as mentioned earlier, more recent evidence on the mutual understanding of actions
and plans among chimpanzees supports the view presented in the paper. However,
Searle’s reductionist account of the prerequisites for collective intentionality is cog-
nitively too demanding to explain what regulates the social world of nonlinguistic
creatures. By explaining that chimpanzees mentally represent the distal intentions of
one another in nonconceptual terms we can offer a parsimonious explanation of the
cognitive requirements for collective intentionality.
2 The Primitiveness ofCollective Intentionality: Analysis
andCritique
The study of social entities is called social ontology. According to Searle (1995),
social entities only exist in virtue of collective acceptance or recognition, or
acknowledgement by two or more individuals in the context of joint activities. Joint
activities are made possible by the coordination of plans for action, and the coordi-
nation of plans for action is made possible by the creation and ascription of collec-
tive intention.3 Insofar as joint action is the result of the coordination and planning
of purposeful actions by two or more individuals towards a shared goal, it is philo-
sophically relevant to individuate under which circumstances a group of individuals
3 In the literature on philosophy of mind, the notion of intention is commonly referred to in relation to
one of the various “dual-intention theories” (Pacherie, 2008). Searle (1983) distinguishes between prior
intentions and intentions in action, Brand (1984) between prospective and immediate intentions, Bratman
(1987) between future-directed and present-directed intentions, Mele (1992) between distal and proxi-
mal intentions. The present paper deals only with distal intention, individual or collective may these be
defined.
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Philosophia
performing a joint action, and thereby exercising collective intentionality, can be
classified as instantiating a social entity.4
According to Searle, social entities exist in virtue of collective acceptance, or rec-
ognition or acknowledgment (Searle, 2006, p. 13), and their existence depends on
us, they are’observer dependent’, because they would have never existed if there had
never been any conscious agents. He thinks collective recognition is necessary, but
it is still not sufficient for that entity to be social. That is because social entities are
such in virtue of the fact that they are created by a set of’observer independent’(i.e.,
objective) thoughts that belong to different individuals. In his view, the minds of
individuals create social’observer dependent’(i.e., subjective) entities through the
coordinated planning activity of their’observer independent’thoughts.
Searle outlines the three primitives that constitute social (and, ultimately, institu-
tional) reality: (1) collective intentionality, (2) the assignment of functions, and (3)
the assignment of status functions. He argues that (1) “Human beings along with a
lot of other social animals, have the capacity for collective intentionality” (Searle,
2010, p. 43) and that (2) “Humans, and some animals, have the capacity to assign
functions to object,5 where the objects do not have the function intrinsically but only
in virtue of the collective assignment” (Searle, 2006, p. 17); Searle maintains that
what separates humans from other animal species is (3) the capacity of assigning
status functions, i.e. assigning constitutive rules and procedures.6 For him, this is
because status functions establish the passage from social reality to institutional
reality, and one of the prerequisites for the creation of institutional facts is language,
which is a faculty that nonhuman animals lack (for an exhaustive discussion on the
role played by language in the creation of institutional reality, see Searle, 2006, pp.
18–21).
Part of the goal of this paper is to disentangle the dispute on the primitiveness
of collective intentionality by addressing where we should place the evolutionary
origins of this phenomenon, prior to the creation of institutional reality. I do not
analyse further the third primitive, i.e., the assignment of status functions. However,
at the end of the paper I sketch a proposal for prospective investigations about the
sufficient conditions for the emergence of the third primitive, and therefore of insti-
tutional entities.
The main concern of this paper is with the first primitive, collective intentional-
ity, in that—according to Searle—this is the basic and sufficient building block for
the creation of social entities as explained above.7
4 Note that not all joint actions are instances of social entities, but all instances of social entities are joint
actions.
5 Social objects fall under the more neutral notion of entities that I deploy.
6 Wilson (2007) has an argument for the ascription of this third capacity to nonhuman animals.
7 Searle refers to “social facts” or “objective facts” rather than “social entities”. But his use of the notion
“social facts” is less pervasive than the use I would make of it, i.e., in Searle’s terminology institutional
reality is constituted by “social facts”. He argues that all institutional facts are social facts, but not all
social facts are institutional facts (Searle, 2014). Since I am primarily concerned with the constitutive
elements of pre-institutional social reality, I avoid any terminological ambiguity and refer to rudimentary
forms of social ontology as “social entities”.
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Philosophia
Human beings, along with many other animal species, are capable of engaging
in cooperative behaviour and sharing attitudes among conspecifics (Searle, 2006, p.
16). Collective intentionality consists in (I) engaging in cooperative behaviour, (II)
sharing intentional states, such as beliefs, desires, intentions (Searle, 1995, p. 152),
or—as he rephrases it in his later analysis (2010, p. 43)—collective intentionality
consists in (I.a) having collective distal intentions in cooperative planning (what he
calls collective prior-intentions) and acting (what he calls collective intentions-in-
action), and (II.a) holding collective distal intentions in believing and desiring. A
complementary outline of the desiderata for the emergence of collective intentional-
ity can be found in (Searle, 2010, pp. 44–45).
Rakoczy and Tomasello’s (2007) criticise Searle for failing to appreciate the dis-
tinction between two different forms of group behaviour: social coordination and
collective intentionality.8 Rakoczy & Tomasello say that social coordination can be
found in nonhuman animals’ activities, while collective intentionality is human-spe-
cific. In order to justify this distinction, they provide evidence from empirical work
on human infant development, and on the way children engage in social activities
at different stages of their growth. Rakoczy & Tomasello emphasise the difference
between the behaviour of chimpanzees and human children; they argue that Sear-
le’s claim that collective intentionality can be found not only in human behaviour,
but also in the group activities of nonhuman animals—most notably in that of our
nearest primate relatives—is wrong. Rakoczy & Tomasello say that during typical
ontogeny, human children move from specific social interactions involving shared
intentionality (learning, sharing, informing, helping) to participation in institutional
contexts. They argue that if Searle is right and collective intentionality must exist
inside individuals’ heads, then the capacity for the creation of social entities requires
the mastery of very sophisticated cognitive tools. They allude to the capacity for
conceptual thinking (Tomasello likewise argued for it in 2014). Their point is that
it is cognitively very demanding to grasp the content of the mental states of others
when this content is conceptual and articulated through a symbolic system of refer-
ence, namely that of language (Rakoczy & Tomasello, 2007, p. 127). However, they
infer a lack of cognitive capacities of chimpanzees just from the lack of motivational
attitudes towards the accomplishment of certain group activities.
Rakoczy and Tomasello do not claim that, necessarily, without language there is
no collective intentionality, but rather that, necessarily, without those pre-linguistic
social activities—such as role reversal imitation, which can be observed very early
in human ontogeny (Tomasello, 2003; Tomasello & Call, 1997)—that constitute the
normal route to the acquisition of a linguistic communicative modality, there is no
collective intentionality. It follows that nonhuman group activities are classified by
Rakoczy & Tomasello as forms of social coordination. But, as argued below, they
are too quick in labelling these behaviours as forms of “complex social coordination
only” (Rakoczy & Tomasello, 2007, p.116), especially when referring to what they
8 In the comparative psychology literature, this latter notion is often used interchangeably with that of
Shared Intentionality (see, especially, Tomasello & Car penter, 2007; Tomasello etal., 2012; Tomasello,
2014).
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Philosophia
admit to be one of the most sophisticated instances of group behaviour in the animal
kingdom, i.e. chimpanzees’group hunting (see also, Tomasello, 2014, p. 35).
A subsequent study reinforces the above point that the limitations that Toma-
sello and colleagues worry about are more likely to be motivational than cognitive.
Melis and Tomasello (2013) present the results of the first experimental study show-
ing chimpanzees manifesting collaborative tendencies when engaging in the same
coordinated action. Chimpanzees display attention to the partner, and some form of
knowledge about the role played by the partner. Melis & Tomasello are cautious
about over-interpreting these findings. But, at the very least, this study shows that
chimpanzees have some appreciation of the fact that the presence of an interacting
partner is related to their own goal, and, crucially, that the engagement of the part-
ner will determine the success or failure of the intended action (they also observe
a number of limitations that I do not discuss here; they are analysed at length in
Melis & Tomasello, 2013). In addition, a study by Krupenye etal. (2016) shows that
great apes can operate, at least at the implicit level, with an understanding of the
behaviour of their conspecifics, manifestly displayed by the anticipation of the goal-
directed actions of others.
It is important that the limitations in the collaborative performances of the chim-
panzees tested by Melis & Tomasello might well be more motivational than cogni-
tive, because, it implies that if chimpanzees are choosing not to cooperate, this is not
due to a lack of understanding on their side, but to a lack of interest in the offer. This
means that, if they have the choice, chimpanzees prefer to act alone. But, if needed,
they interact collaboratively. Thus, the can question becomes a want question. The
motivational question is a fascinating one, but not the one addressed here, and not
needed to defend the evolutionary primitiveness of collective intentionality.
I argue below that “hunting teams” count as a by-product of chimpanzees’ rich
understanding of the social nature of their joint achievements. But I recognize that it
is, indeed, very controversial to what degree chimpanzee hunting (or any other form
of cooperation) depends on a) coordinated and intentional collaboration or b) a sim-
pler mechanism such as coordinated actions in which multiple individuals pursue
the same goal at the same time but with different intentions.
One way of approaching the debate is by asking: what is the nature9 of the con-
tent of the mental states that are required in collective intentional behaviour, i.e.,
the future-directed intentions required in structuring and coordinating action, which
Bratman calls “plan-states” (Bratman, 2012, 2014) and I define as “distal intentions”
to emphasize their functional role as mental causal antecedents of action planning.
To illustrate, consider an example of a distal intention involved in collective inten-
tions: a chimpanzee, before engaging in a group hunt, might anticipate the role it
will play in driving prey toward another member of the group. This kind of forward-
directed intention plays a key role in structuring the cooperative activity, making it
more than just simultaneous but interdependent actions.
9 Gallotti (2012) has a richer proposal. He argues that the debate on the primitiveness of social ontology
is both metaphysical and epistemological.
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Philosophia
Importantly, distal intentions, in the context of collective coordinated behav-
iour, are not merely “involved” in collective intentionality; they are required for
structuring and sustaining coordinated action. Without distal intentions, indi-
viduals might act simultaneously toward a shared goal but without the necessary
framework that maintains cohesion in their collaboration. Distal intentions func-
tion as critical structuring elements that ensure complementarity among partici-
pants’ roles, rather than mere parallel activity.
Another way to approach the debate is by asking what relationship the content
of these and other types of mental states have with linguistic capacities. One reason
to support this view is that distal intentions often involve deliberation about future
actions, requiring a cognitive framework that structures how an individual foresees
and organizes steps toward achieving a goal. For example, when one decides in the
morning to cook dinner in the evening, their distal intention involves conceptual
representations of food, cooking methods, and timing. This type of structured fore-
sight has led some scholars to argue that distal intentions necessarily involve con-
ceptual content Allen & Bekoff, 1997; Audi, 1973; Beardsley, 1978; Bratman, 1987;
Churchland, 1970; Davidson, 1980; Goldman, 1970; Searle, 1983).
Call this view Conceptualism about Distal Intentions (CDI). Different
approaches to this view share these assumptions:
1. All action plans include distal intentions.
2. All distal intentions include conceptual content.
3. All action plans include conceptual content.
However, these premises need further clarification. Not all of the authors cited
explicitly discuss “distal intentions” or “action plans” in these terms. Instead, their
work concerns the broader idea that future-directed intentions play a structural
role in action planning and coordination. Here, “action plans” refer to structured
sequences of intended behaviours aimed at achieving future goals. In cognitive and
philosophical literature, action plans are often considered mental representations of
steps toward goal achievement, a perspective consistent with Bratman’s and others’
discussions of planning agency. Clarifying this notion helps to show why CDI pro-
ponents argue that action plans necessarily contain distal intentions and why they
regard conceptual content as integral to such planning.
CDI comes in two forms: call them Anthropocentric Conceptualism (AC) and
Non-Anthropocentric Conceptualism (NAC). AC says that the only cognitive sys-
tems whose mental states have conceptual content are those cognitive systems who
have linguistic capacities, i.e., full-blown adult human beings (Bratman, 1987;
Davidson, 1980, 1984). NAC says that nonlinguistic cognitive systems also have
mental states whose content is conceptual (Searle, 1994; Allen & Bekoff, 1997;
Beck, 2012, for an overview of theories of concepts; Machery, 2009, and Weiskopf,
2008, for a description of a psychological theory of concepts, and Allen, 1999, and
McAninch etal., 2009, for how animals might be said to have concepts).
Drawing on this distinction between two variants of the traditional way of con-
ceiving the content of mental states, the relevant question is whether linguistic
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Philosophia
capacities are required in order to hold and share distal intentions. The distinc-
tion between AC and NAC hinges on the premise that all distal intentions have
conceptual content, but they diverge on the role of linguistic capacity in
conceptualization:
AC: Conceptual capacities and linguistic capacities are interdependent. Since
conceptual thought is tied to language, nonlinguistic animals cannot form distal
intentions or collective intentions.
NAC: Conceptual capacities do not depend on language. Therefore, nonlinguistic
creatures can still be planning agents, capable of forming distal intentions.
Searle argues that conceptual thinking does not depend on the mastery of lan-
guage, allowing nonlinguistic creatures to form planning states and engage in col-
lective intentionality. This positions him with NAC. However, earlier I suggested
that primitive collective intentionality requires a notion of distal intentions that does
not necessitate conceptual capacities. This requires rejecting both AC and NAC.
To clarify, my position extends NAC by allowing for distal intentions structured by
nonconceptual content, thereby making collective intentionality possible even in
cases lacking full conceptual thought, as I shall explan later on.
Rakoczy and Tomasello (2007) argue against Searle’s attribution of the capac-
ity for the creation of social entities to nonhuman animals along the lines of the
AC, that is, the idea that the capacity for conceptual thinking and the capacity for
language are mutually dependent (Rakoczy & Tomasello, 2007, p. 123, 131). This
means that conceptual capacities require language and vice versa. Their view con-
flicts with their own work showing that prelinguistic capacities underlie both lan-
guage and conceptual thought. This creates ambiguity: can conceptual thought occur
independently of linguistic structures, or is language merely a medium for express-
ing pre-existing conceptual capacities? To resolve this, I propose the following
refinements:
If conceptual capacities require linguistic mastery, AC is upheld.
If conceptual capacities exist independently of language and later support linguis-
tic development, NAC is upheld.
If conceptual capacities do not depend on linguistic mastery or full conceptual-
ization, a nonconceptual framework for distal intentions should be explored.
Therefore, Rakoczy & Tomasello’s rejection of the idea that nonlinguistic ani-
mals can create social entities suggests that they think it is a necessary condition
for creatures to be capable of creating social entities that they have mastery of con-
ceptual (and, perhaps thus, linguistic—altough Tomasello, 2016 has a more refined
approach that may keep concepts and language separate) capacities. The possession
of conceptual capacities depends on complex representational skills, such as those
for natural language. Hence, a characterization of nonconceptual mental content
would be beneficial for an account of distal intentions, when these mental states
belong to or are ascribed to nonlinguistic creatures (guidelines for such an account
can be found in the work of Peacocke, 1992,1997, 2009, 2014, 2016; Schellenberg,
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Philosophia
2013; Crane, 1992). In the following section, I unpack what nonconceptual mental
content might be.
I aim to further the investigation of the conceptual structure that underpins the
development of Searle’s theory of social reality because that would result in a more
fruitful application of his philosophical analysis for empirical purposes, including
those of Tomasello and colleagues’work. To understand the stakes of this debate, it
is helpful to situate CDI, both in its AC and NAC variants, within two broader meta-
level positions on the relationship between language and thinking as I shall explain
next.
3 The Primitiveness ofCollective Intentionality: aDefence
In this section, (a) I refine the distinction between conceptual and linguistic capaci-
ties, and (b) I argue that to defend the primitiveness of some forms of collective
intentionality we need a notion of distal intentions, that does not require the mastery
of conceptual capacities. Among the elements needed for the creation of social enti-
ties there is a fundamental capacity to form distal intentions and ascribe distal inten-
tions to others. This capacity can, but does not need to lead, as Searle would argue,
to the ascription of collective intentions (Searle, 1990), but, more fundamentally,
it enables the ascription of individual intentions with meshing sub-plans (Bratman,
1992, 2014). While the ascription of collective intentions likely requires conceptual
thinking, this may not be the case for the ascription of individual intentions with
meshing sub-plans (see Pacherie, 2007, 2011, for a similar claim).
To illustrate, consider as a case of collective intention that does not require con-
ceptual content: a group of chimpanzees engaged in cooperative hunting. Each chim-
panzee coordinates its movements with the others, anticipating the actions of their
peers in ways that suggest shared goals. However, their coordination does not neces-
sitate the kind of abstract conceptual understanding required for propositional judg-
ments. By contrast, a case that does require conceptual content would be a formal
agreement among humans to establish a constitution—such an agreement presup-
poses linguistic and conceptual capacities for explicit rule formation and adherence.
Searle maintains that conceptual thinking does not depend on the mastery of lan-
guage, allowing nonlinguistic creatures to be planning agents capable of forming
distal intentions and engaging in forms of collective intentionality.
Despite the usefulness of Searle’s distinction, his dual-intention theory10 seems to
raise problems of its own, and indeed—following Pacherie—I maintain that Searle’s
characterization of distal intentions (or prior intentions, in his terminology) cannot
10 Some kinds of intention can guide proximal actions, and some other kinds of intention can guide
action planning. A general distinction between these two kinds of intention is determined by the tempo-
ral location of the action that the intention is meant to guide. A narrower distinction is that while some
intentions guide actions directly, other intentions guide plans for actions. As a result, the cognitive func-
tion of intentions that guide proximal actions is the monitoring and guidance of ongoing bodily move-
ments (Brand, 1984); while the cognitive function of intentions that guide future actions is the monitor-
ing and guidance of a plan.
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Philosophia
fully account for the mental states of nonhuman animals (see also Pacherie, 2000).
This necessitates a closer examination of the role of conceptual and nonconceptual
content in intentional states.
I will now explain how the debate on mental content interfaces with that of the
evolutionary primitiveness of collective intentionality.
We may call the position to the effect that thinking depends on language—and
therefore that the only linguistic animals are human beings—the Strong Dependency
View (SDV). This stance is notoriously defended by Davidson (1984). On the other
hand, we may call Weak Dependency V (WDV) the view to the effect that thinking
does not depend on language, and therefore that nonlinguistic animals (i.e., nonhu-
man animals) only lack the capacity to form some mental states, namely those that
depend on the mastery of linguistic capacities. Searle defends the latter, and, accord-
ingly, his work addresses the following questions: can we decide which intentional
states require language and which ones do not? And then, to whom can we ascribe
such and such intentional states (Searle, 1994)?
The two ‘dependency’ views—SDV and WDV—offer meta-level positions on the
relationship between language and thinking, with implications for CDI.
SDV Thinking depends on language. This view implies that AC is the only viable
form of CDI because nonlinguistic creatures lack the linguistic structures neces-
sary for conceptual thought. Davidson (1984) defends this position, arguing that
fine-grained discrimination among intentional states (e.g., beliefs, desires) requires
a linguistically articulated concept of those states. According to Davidson, the truth
or falsity of intentional states hinges on a metalinguistic capacity to evaluate their
content, which is inherently tied to language.
WDV Thinking does not depend on language. This position supports NAC by allow-
ing that nonlinguistic creatures can engage in conceptual thinking. Searle (1994)
argues that intentional states with conceptual content can exist independently of lan-
guage. He contends that perception and action-oriented mental states, which have
their own success conditions (e.g., fulfillment or unfulfillment), precede the devel-
opment of propositional content and linguistic capacities. According to the SDV,
defended by Davidson (1984), where there is no language it is impossible to make a
fine-grained discrimination among intentional states, like beliefs or desires, or inten-
tions. This is because this fine discrimination is about the content of the intentional
states taken into account. The central point is that in order to discriminate between
the truth or falsity of an intentional state one must have a linguistically articulated
concept of that intentional state. This is a two-steps claim. We can agree with the
first part that having an intentional state requires the capacity to discriminate condi-
tions that satisfy the intentional state from those that do not (see Davidson, 1984,
p. 171; Searle, 1994, p. 211). But Searle says that “ ‘truth’ and ‘false’ are indeed
metalinguistic predicates, but more fundamentally they are meta intentional predi-
cates. They are used to assess success and failure of representations to achieve fit in
the mind-to-world direction of fit, of which statements and sentences are a special
case” (Searle, 1994, p. 212). According to Searle, the second part of this statement
has a false premise. And this is because perception and action-oriented mental states
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Philosophia
are forms of intentionality that come prior to forms of intentionality that involve
propositional contents, like beliefs and desires. The reason why intentions can be
nonpropositional is this: while propositional attitudes like beliefs or desires need
to be assessed for truth or falsity, nonpropositional intentional states like intentions
can only be evaluated as fulfilled or as unfulfilled. For the latter, no boundaries are
imposed by logic. In 2015 Searle argued that: “It is an old mistake to suppose that if
animals can think, then they must be able to think that they are thinking. And it is an
extension of that mistake to suppose that if animals have complex intentional struc-
tures in perception and action, then they must be able to think about the content of
these complex intentional structures.” (Searle, 2015, p. 5). This additional statement
reinforces Searle’s approach to the characterisation of the content of mental states.
The WDV can only be analysed if we know which aspects of intentional states
require language. There are two such aspects: first, the conditions of satisfaction of
the intentional state are linguistic; second, the mode of representing the conditions
of satisfaction of the intentional state is linguistic (Searle, 1994, p. 213). Searle says:
“It seems obvious to me that infants and animals that do not in any ordinary sense
have a language or perform speech acts nonetheless have intentional states” (Searle,
1983, p. 5), and he argues that before there was language humans might have had
beliefs and desires (Searle, 1979, p. 177). In Searle’s view, the possession of inten-
tional states with semantic, i.e., conceptual, content is independent of the possession
of language.
These distinctions clarify the relationship between CDI and the dependency
arguments. CDI pertains specifically to the content of distal intentions, examining
whether conceptual capacities are required for these future-directed mental states. In
contrast, SDV and WDV explore whether language is a prerequisite for conceptual
thinking more broadly, providing the meta-framework within which CDI is situated.
This meta-framework is preparatory to the proposal that I anticipated offering.
To Recapitulate The SDV implies that AC is the only viable form of CDI, as non-
linguistic creatures lack the linguistic structures necessary for conceptual thought.
Davidson (1984) supports this view, arguing that fine-grained discrimination among
intentional states (e.g., beliefs, desires) requires a linguistically articulated concept
of those states. This is because evaluating the truth or falsity of intentional states
hinges on a metalinguistic capacity to assess their content, which is inherently tied
to language. The WDV, in contrast, allows for the possibility that nonlinguistic crea-
tures can engage in conceptual thinking, though it does not necessarily entail NAC.
Searle (1994) argues that some intentional states with conceptual content can exist
independently of language. However, the claim that WDV directly supports NAC
would be strong; rather, WDV permits the possibility that nonlinguistic creatures
have conceptual thought. In practice, animal cognition research broadly supports
WDV for terrestrial vertebrates and many other species, making it a widely accepted
baseline assumption rather than a controversial claim.
A key issue with SDV is that it equates “thinking” with “conceptual think-
ing,” an assumption that is neither self-evident nor universally accepted. While
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Philosophia
Davidson’s view might be read as an extreme version of AC, it does not accu-
rately reflect the positions of researchers such as Rakoczy and Tomasello (2007).
These authors do not argue that nonhuman animals entirely lack intentionality;
rather, their view suggests a graded approach to the relationship between con-
ceptual capacities and linguistic capacities. My view clarifies this distinction by
emphasizing that prelinguistic capacities form a basis for both conceptual think-
ing and linguistic abilities without necessitating strict interdependence. I defend
a position called Capacity-Based Dependency View (CBDV). This view empha-
sizes the role of prelinguistic capacities in collective intentionality. According
to the CBDV, language is necessary for the construction of those mental states
whose content is conceptual—that is, mental states that consist in making judg-
ments. However, these conceptual states are not required for all forms of inten-
tionality, particularly those relevant to collective intentions of the sort discussed
in this paper.
The most basic notion of conceptual thought applies to intentional states that rep-
resent some particular as belonging to some general kind or represent several par-
ticulars as standing in some relation (Gauker, 2002, p. 687). The reason why lan-
guage users can be said to engage in conceptual thinking is because they can overtly
say of some particulars that they stand in some relation to one another, and they can
draw inferences from sayings of this kind (Gauker, 2007, p. 135; see also, Chater &
Heyes, 1994, p. 237).
In the present context, I need to clarify how I am analysing the very notion of
mental content. It can be characterised in terms of the conditions of satisfactions
that it determines or in terms of those with which it is identified. Alternatively, con-
tent can also be characterised with respect to the attitudes that are taken towards that
content. These specifications are implemented by a further distinction, that is, that
of content as conceptual or nonconceptual. This latter distinction consists in con-
tent being identifiable with the information that a cognitive system receives from the
world or as the way in which information is received from the world by the cognitive
system (Schellenberg, 2013).
The conceptual/nonconceptual content debate is complex (see, for instance, Stal-
naker, 2003; Byrne, 2004). I draw on (Bermùdez, 2007) and take conceptual mental
content to be the informational content of the mental state of a subject that needs to
master the concepts required to specify that content in order to be in that state; and
I take nonconceptual mental content to be the informational content of the mental
state of a subject who does not need to master the concepts required to specify that
content in order to be in that state. More specifically, the distinction between con-
ceptual and nonconceptual thought is roughly as follows: conceptual mental content
represents a particular as belonging to some kind or of some particulars as stand-
ing in some relation. These contents are inferentially related; whereas nonconcep-
tual mental content represents a “similarity judgement” among different particulars,
where no inferential process needs to occur (Gauker, 2005, p. 289). To be more pre-
cise, conceptual thinking is, arguably, propositional and it works by means of dis-
junctive exclusion through the attribution of truth-values.
Hence, when distal intentions belong to or are ascribed to nonlinguistic creatures,
we can invoke a nonpropositional-based explanation, because these mental states do
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Philosophia
not need to have a logical form. It should be noted that the claim that nonconceptual
content results in nonpropositional format holds if we accept Davidson’s SDV. But
if we side with the defenders of the WDV, propositionalism could also be an option.
Sinhababu (2015), who defends propositionalism, warns philosophers against
assuming that a mental state having a propositional format entails that the mental
state has conceptual content. He points out that “Philosophers should not follow lin-
guistic evidence to a psychological theory that cannot deliver good psychological
explanations” (Sinhababu, 2015, pp. 14). I propose that if propositional format can
be dissociated from conceptual content, that is to say, if we can conceive of mental
states with a propositional format and nonconceptual content, then propositional-
ism offers a way of overcoming the problem of how we can ever individuate animal
mental content.
Given this generally applicable characterization of what nonconceptual content
is, we can add, following Schellenberg (2013, P. 279), that mental content can be
understood in nonconceptual terms if we allow it to provide discriminatory capaci-
ties that establish accuracy or inaccuracy conditions, and that guide us through the
identification of particular instances of the world. Discriminatory capacities allow
for the representation of the world as being a certain way. On the basis of what a
creature represents the world to be, she can exercise a similarity judgement, and
reallocate possibilities through the estimation of different options and the control
over the selected one. Accordingly, she can mentally act in order to prepare for dis-
tal-oriented actions.
In conclusion, a nonconceptual account of mental content for distal intentions
should be saving compositionality (needed to articulate a plan) without entailing
propositionalism (the attribution of truth-values). Prelinguistic capacities play a
foundational role in both language development and collective intentionality, serv-
ing as a common substrate that allows for the emergence of more complex cognitive
and social structures. This claim differentiates the CBDV from both SDV, which ties
fine-grained intentionality strictly to language, and WDV, which sometimes under-
plays the role of foundational capacities in enabling collective intentions. An exam-
ple of how an advocate of WDA, such as Searle, has underplayed these foundational
capacities can be found in his focus on language-independent conceptual think-
ing while paying less attention to the mechanisms that enable complex, structured
cooperation in nonhuman animals—the sort discussed in the following section. For
instance, while Searle acknowledges that animals can engage in cooperative actions,
he does not emphasize how these actions rely on nonconceptual cognitive mecha-
nisms such as behavioural synchronization, implicit communication, and sensitivity
to social contingencies—capacities that enable structured but nonconceptual col-
lective intentionality. CBDV highlights these mechanisms as crucial in bridging the
gap between individual and collective intentionality.
A further clarification concerns how foundational capacities, sometimes called
prelinguistic capacities, contribute to collective intentionality. These capaci-
ties include (1) the ability to form distal intentions, (2) the ability to attribute dis-
tal intentions to others, and (3) the ability to engage in coordinated, goal-directed
joint actions without requiring explicit conceptual understanding. The latter, as said,
encompasses behavioural synchronization, implicit communication, sensitivity to
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Philosophia
social contingencies, and shared action representation. These foundational capaci-
ties, while nonconceptual, enable individuals to navigate complex social interactions
and engage in structured cooperation.
These requirements are a necessary basis for the framework that we can employ
in order to explain how a future-oriented mental state can result from a nonlogi-
cal form of reasoning, leaving aside the fact the we do not have other compelling
reasons to endorse the view that reasoning through causal representing must entail
mental states with a propositional structure and a conceptual content (see, Camp,
2007, 2009; Clark, 2013; Gärdenfors, 2003; Gauker, 2007; Rescorla, 2009, 2013;
Schellenberg, 2013). If we take this explanatory route, we are no longer committed
to the idea that, since nonhuman animals do not possess concepts, then nonhuman
animals cannot represent the world in a veridical way.
In the articulation of my view I rely, in part, on Davidson’s two-step argument.
He argues that (1) thoughts are made of propositional attitudes and that (2) the con-
tent of every mental state is conceptual (Davidson, 1984, p. 103). I then apply the
consequent analysis of the CBDV to the debate on the primitiveness of collective
intentionality.
Rakoczy and Tomasello also seem to follow a Davidsonian strategy as their view
suggests that they are arguing that conceptual capacities and linguistic capacities are
interdependent (Rakoczy & Tomasello, 2007, p. 127). Perhaps it is Davidson’s influ-
ence that prevents them from appreciating certain features of Searle’s arguments for
the primitiveness of collective intentionality. This is because Davidson does not just
argue for (1) the interdependency between conceptual and linguistic capacities, but
he also claims that (2) conceptual thinking is the only modality of thinking in gen-
eral, including, a fortiori, thinking involved in planning. It seems that while Searle
takes from Davidson only the second claim, Rakoczy & Tomasello take both the
first and the second claim.
The CBDV defends Searle’s selective adoption of Davidson’s claim that concep-
tual thinking is not the only modality of thinking relevant to planning. However, it
departs from Davidson and Rakoczy & Tomasello by emphasizing that prelinguistic
capacities are foundational for both collective intentionality and language, without
requiring a strict dependency between the two. This position accommodates evi-
dence of nonconceptual distal intentions in nonlinguistic animals.
I argue for the first but not for the second claim: distal intentions involved in plan-
ning, in the creation of collective intentionality, and in the assignment of functions
(not of status functions) are, plausibly, nonconceptual in content when they belong
to nonlinguistic animals. I defend this claim by exploiting the general framework
developed by Bratman (1987, 2014) in his planning theory, and then apply that
framework to argue for primitive collective intentionality. Primitive social entities
exist upon the ascription of nonconceptual distal intentions. Primitive social entities
exist upon the ascription of nonconceptual distal intentions.
By defending the CBDV, I argue that while language is needed for the con-
struction of conceptual mental states, it is not essential for all forms of inten-
tionality, particularly those involved in planning and distal intentions. In the light
of the foregoing, I now discuss the empirical evidence: chimpanzee group hunt-
ing. This involves the ascription of distal intentions, which are the basic building
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Philosophia
blocks for the creation of social entities. Group hunting involves distal intention
ascription because it can be explained according to Bratman’s planning theory
which gives distal intention ascription a key role in the coordination and planning
of joint activities.
One important clarification to be made in the interpretation provided in this paper
of Rakoczy and Tomasello’s account is whether they truly endorse the view that a
propositional or highly conceptual understanding of the plan is necessary for collec-
tive intentionality. This point is inferred from their original arguments from 2007,
and it warrants revisiting in light of Tomasello’s more recent work where a similar
idea resurfaces in his discussion of various aspects of action theory.
In A Natural History of Human Morality (2016) and The Moral Psychology of
Obligation (2020), Tomasello refines his stance on collective intentionality, par-
ticularly emphasising a key element of Bratman’s view—the commitment to mutual
support. Tomasello (2016, 2020) argues that in order to uphold this mutual commit-
ment, individuals must not only have a plan but also possess an understanding of
the roles played by others within that plan. Crucially, Tomasello’s revised position
would suggest (to a reader) that this understanding need not be fully linguistic and
may only be partially conceptual. What becomes essential is the participant’s grasp
of not just the distal intentions (long-term goals) of others, but also their proximal
intentions—the immediate actions others are undertaking to achieve those goals.
This shift in focus highlights that successful cooperation hinges on more than
just knowing the shared objective. For Tomasello (2020), it is equally vital for par-
ticipants to understand how others are working toward that objective, allowing for
mutual adjustments and support as needed. This refinement in Tomasello’s theory
suggests that a full propositional understanding may not be a strict requirement for
collective intentionality, as participants can coordinate and support each other’s
efforts even with a partially conceptual grasp of the plan. However, any such read-
ing of Tomasello’s position would encounter some challenges in its extension. He
argues that this mutual commitment to support, in turn, fosters a sense of fairness
in distributing rewards among collaborators. This conclusion is problematic, as it
rests on a contentious interpretation of Gilbert’s (Gilbert, 1989, 2009) non-reductive
and metaphysically primitive conception of collective intentions. Tomasello seems
to borrow from Gilbert’s framework to propose that fairness naturally follows from
the mutual recognition of roles and contributions, but this leap raises questions.
Gilbert’s model is resistant to reduction, maintaining that collective intentions can-
not be entirely reduced to individual intentions, a point Tomasello appears to gloss
over. Critically, Tomasello’s, 2020 work has prompted responses from both Bratman
(2020) and Gilbert (2020), who challenge these expansions of his theory. Their cri-
tiques underscore the complexities of applying the concept of mutual support to fair-
ness in collaboration, particularly when viewed through the lens of Gilbert’s more
robust metaphysical framework (Bratman, 2014; Gilbert, 2020).
In sum (so far), the debate on the primitiveness of collective intentionality hinges
on whether conceptual and linguistic capacities are necessary prerequisites for the
formation of distal intentions that underpin joint actions. Searle’s WDV asserts
that non-linguistic creatures can form intentional states and engage in collective
intentionality without the need for conceptual thought. This stands in contrast to
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Philosophia
Davidson’s SDV, which argues that without language, animals cannot make fine-
grained discriminations among their intentional states.
By supporting the CBDV, I contend that although language is necessary for con-
structing conceptual mental states, it is not indispensable for all types of intentional-
ity, especially those related to planning and distal intentions. Non-linguistic animals,
such as chimpanzees, can create distal intentions that are nonconceptual in nature,
which still allow them to engage in collective actions.
In the context of primitive collective intentionality, these nonconceptual distal
intentions provide the building blocks for the creation of social entities, as evidenced
in chimpanzee group hunting. This framework, grounded in Bratman’s planning the-
ory, supports the notion that nonhuman animals are capable of forming social enti-
ties without the need for full-blown conceptual thought, thus reinforcing the view
that collective intentionality is evolutionarily primitive. Further empirical investi-
gation, such as the analysis of chimpanzee cooperation in various forms, provides
evidence for these claims, challenging reductionist views like those of Rakoczy and
Tomasello. By revisiting Tomasello’s later work, we see an evolution of his stance,
which now acknowledges that mutual understanding and coordination in joint
actions may not require a fully propositional or conceptual understanding.
4 Hunting Teams asSocial Entities
According to Bratman’s Planning Theory, distal intentions guide action planning.
They provide control over the action and stability to the plan. On top of this, his
view about shared agency is that interlocking distal intentions control and structure
shared intentional activity. This, in a nutshell, is Bratman’s constructivist approach
to frame shared agency: “To intend to do something—Bratman argues—is to be in
a plan state, where we understand what a plan state is by explaining its role in the
rational dynamics of planning agency. Intending leads to action in ways that nor-
mally involve diachronic planning structures” (Bratman, 2012, p. 4).
Individual action planning is enabled by two features: firstly, the capacity for tem-
poral extended intentional agency, which consists in the capacity to appreciate the
place that one’s own acting has within a broadly structured action, plus the acknowl-
edgement that one’s own activity is practically committed to that of the broadly
structured action; secondly, the capacity for self-governance, which is the ability to
take a practical standpoint as a guiding principle for one’s own acting.11 Bratman
explains that in order to reach this further step, that is, shared intentional activity,
we need to add to these two features a third one: the capacity to interlock individual
distal intentions, and to ascribe distal intentions with meshing sub-plans. In sum:
the capacity to create and ascribe individual distal intentions allows (1) extended
11 See Holton, 2009, pp. 5 - 9 for different ways of understanding control and stability as features of
intention; see also Shepherd, 2014, for a full account of control).
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Philosophia
intentional agency, (2) self-governance, and (3) shared intentional activity. These
features are necessary and sufficient conditions for the emergence of collective
intentionality.12
‘Action-free perdurance’ is introduced here as a concept to frame the proto-
institutional aspect of hunting teams. This notion refers to the capacity of a social
entity to exist as a normative structure solely during the performance of coordinated
actions, without persisting beyond that timeframe. I argue that this proto-institu-
tional capacity underpins the structure of hunting teams as primitive social entities.
Hunting practices among Ivory Coast chimpanzees can be framed in terms of
Bratman’s planning theory (Bratman, 1987). If Taï chimpanzees are capable of plan-
ning, as can be inferred from their behaviour, then they possess the capacity to form
distal intentions. Since their actions are coordinated over time, according to Brat-
man’s shared agency theory (Bratman, 2009, 2014), Taï chimpanzees are also capa-
ble of sharing joint distal intentions. Taï chimpanzees’ group hunting exhibits the
three faculties analysed by Bratman. This behaviour can be labelled as a coordinated
planning activity, and it also meets Searle’s desiderata for any account of collec-
tive intentionality. Therefore, what I call hunting teams should be acknowledged as
social entities.
While I argue that language facilitates the establishment and perdurance of insti-
tutional realities, the claim that normative states must be facilitated by language
requires further empirical support. Recent research suggests that nonhuman ani-
mals, including chimpanzees, may possess forms of normative cognition (Andrews,
2020; Westra etal., 2024). These studies indicate that certain animals might operate
within social norms that regulate behaviours within their communities, potentially
challenging the assumption that normative states necessitate language. For example,
studies on social normativity in primates suggest that chimpanzees engage in sanc-
tioning behaviours when social expectations are violated (von Rohr et al., 2012).
Similarly, bonobos display behaviours that indicate an awareness of social expecta-
tions and cooperative fairness (Tan etal., 2017). Some researchers even argue that
social norms might be present in eusocial species, such as ants, where collective
enforcement mechanisms regulate colony behaviour (Lorini etal., 2024). However,
the nature of these norms and whether they require conceptual cognition remains
contested. Tomasello (2020) argues that norms require shared intentions, which in
turn demand abstract and conceptual capacities. While I acknowledge this perspec-
tive, my account suggests that normative regulation may exist on a spectrum, with
some forms of social normativity emerging without the full conceptual apparatus
required for institutional facts. If certain primates exhibit behaviours that function as
12 Philosophers already explored alternative approaches to the planning theory in order to make it suit-
able for explaining the behaviour of creatures that lack conceptual capacities (see Pacherie, 2007, 2011;
Butterfill, 2011). But none of these other proposals have taken into account the possibility to appreciate
the planning theory in the light of a notion of nonconceptual mental content. Bratman has not overtly
argued against any nonconceptual account of individual distal intentions with meshing sub-plans, nor
has he denied the attribution of such distal intentions to nonhuman animals (Bratman, 2014, pp. 106, 185
- 186).
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Philosophia
social norms without relying on language, this challenges the strict dependency of
normative states on conceptual thought.
Both the pygmy chimpanzee or bonobo (Pan paniscus) and the chimpanzee (Pan
Troglodytes) cooperate in a wide range of situations and it has been observed that
their cooperative behaviours are very plastic across a range of ecologies (see Muller
& Mitani, 2005; Hare & Tan, 2012, for a comprehensive review). For example, both
bonobos and chimpanzees have long-term relationships in which they support each
other through grooming, coalitions, and food sharing (de Waal, 1982, 1997; Goodall,
1986; Hohmann & Fruth, 2002; Kano, 1992; Nishida, 1983; Parish, 1994; Vervae-
cke etal., 2000; Watts, 2002). In addition, male chimpanzees have been observed to
regularly hunt monkeys and patrol their territory borders in groups (Nishida et al.,
1979; Wrangham, 1999; Boesch & Boesch - Achermann, 2000; Watts & Mitani,
2001; Mitani & Watts, 2001; Williams etal., 2004).
However, it is important to acknowledge that an alternative interpretation of this
behaviour has been proposed by Moll and Tomasello (2007). They argue for a defla-
tionary account of chimpanzee hunting, which denies the presence of shared goals
or roles. According to their view, chimpanzees do not act with a sense of joint inten-
tionality during group hunting but rather coordinate their behaviour individually
without any true shared commitment to a collective goal. Tomasello’s later work
supports this interpretation, claiming that the kind of sharing required for collective
intentionality is absent in the aftermath of chimpanzee hunting parties (Tomasello,
2020).
While Moll and Tomasello’s deflationary account presents a legitimate challenge
to the interpretation of chimpanzee hunting as a collective action involving shared
goals, I contend that their argument may oversimplify the behaviours observed by
Boesch and Boesch-Achermann. For instance, their critique primarily focuses on the
absence of human-like social norms or fairness in the distribution of rewards after
a hunt. However, the coordinated division of labour during the hunt, along with the
stable roles each individual takes on, suggests a level of cooperation that cannot be
easily reduced to mere individualistic action.
Moreover, recent research provides additional evidence for joint intentional action
in nonhuman primates, which strengthens the case for interpreting chimpanzee hunt-
ing as involving collective intentionality.
Heesen etal. (2021) show that chimpanzees demonstrate joint commitment dur-
ing cooperative activities. This suggests that they can coordinate their behaviour
based on shared goals, fulfilling a core element of Bratman’s planning theory. This
joint commitment implies that chimpanzees are aware of not only their own role but
also how their actions mesh with those of their partners. Duguid and Melis (2020)
explore the mechanisms underlying animal collaboration, demonstrating that chim-
panzees are aware of their partners’ roles during problem-solving tasks. This under-
standing of proximal plans—where individuals adjust their behaviour in response to
the immediate actions of others—shows a level of cooperation that supports the idea
of shared intentionality in nonhuman animals. Additionally, Melis and Tomasello
(2019) highlight how chimpanzees use communicative signals to coordinate their
actions during joint problem-solving tasks. This communication is key to under-
standing how they maintain coordination and mutual responsiveness during group
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Philosophia
hunting, particularly as they switch between different roles such as drivers, blockers,
chasers, and ambushers (Boesch & Boesch - Achermann, 2000). Buttelman etal.
(2017) further support this by showing that great apes can distinguish between true
and false beliefs during interactive tasks, revealing their capacity for understanding
the intentions and mental states of others. Although their cognitive abilities may not
be on par with human theory of mind, these findings indicate that chimpanzees pos-
sess a sophisticated social cognition that allows them to coordinate complex group
actions.
These studies collectively bolster the argument that chimpanzees are capable of
understanding both proximal and distal plans in ways that allow for more than coor-
dination during collaborative tasks. In the remainder of the section, I re-analyse cer-
tain features of Taï Chimpanzees’ group hunting (Boesch & Boesch - Achermann,
2000). This is, arguably, a case of ascription of individual distal intentions with
meshing sub-plans that create a rudimentary social entity: a hunting team.
I take these cases of group hunting, studied by Boesch and colleagues, to pro-
vide evidence that nonlinguistic animals are capable of exercising collective inten-
tionality. This is an instance of social reality because the social entity hunting team
satisfies Searle’s desiderata for an entity to count as social: that all intentionality,
collective or individual, exists inside individuals’heads, and that individuals share
collective goals and intend to do their own part in achieving the goal.
Accordingly, a hunting group is defined as such when: “individuals actively take
part in a hunt by placing themselves in positions where they could perform a cap-
ture” (Boesch & Boesch - Achermann, 2000, p. 174).
Here is a brief summary of the group hunting practice. These strategies require a
coalition of up to four individuals. Tai chimpanzees can succeed in coordinating a
single hunt as long as each of the participants to the hunt remains loyal to his role.
Four roles have been identified: the driver, the blocker, the chaser, and the ambusher.
Roles are assigned on the basis of the current position of each chimpanzee with
respect to the perceived location of the target. The reward is distributed propor-
tionally to the role covered during the hunting. Individuals who worked harder and
exposed themselves to higher risks get more than the others when it comes to shar-
ing the spoils. In brief, this is the optimal hunting scenario: after locating the target,
the driver forces the prey, i.e., normally a red colobus monkey, to take a specific
direction in the canopy, and, at the same time, the blocker makes sure that the prey
cannot deviate from the direction forced by the driver. Then, the chaser tries to catch
the prey by climbing under it. Then, the ambusher smoothly blocks the escape and
traps the red colobus.
Boesch and Boesch - Achermann (2000) say that cooperation in hunting is kept
stable by: (a) a mechanism for individual recognition, (b) temporary memory of
actions in the recent past, (c) attribution of value to those actions, and (d) social
enforcement of those values. Notably, the features pointed out by Bratman’s Plan-
ning Theory correspond to the features that keep the hunting stable. The capac-
ity for temporally extended intentional agency depends on the ability to (b) retain
memory of actions in the recent past. This supports the capacity for self-governance
that depends on the ability to (c) attribute values to the actions in which the agents
are engaged. The latter triggers (d) mutual responsiveness to those actions in virtue
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Philosophia
of the values that are attributed to them. Then, this results in (a) a mechanism for
mutual recognition that enables shared intentional activity.
Blomberg (2015) offers a sympathetic analysis to my view. He highlights the
difference between collective and distributive action, exploring how chimpanzees
engage in what appears to be collective action during group hunting. This is con-
trasted with Tomasello’s argument that such actions are individualistic. Blomberg
critiques the dualism between true collaboration and mere coordination, arguing for
a middle ground where joint action does not necessarily require full collaboration
but involves coordinated actions with a common goal . I argue that nonhuman ani-
mals create social entities through collective intentionality, even if this intentional-
ity is metaphysically reducible to individual intentions. This reduction aligns with
Blomberg’s middle-ground approach, suggesting that what may appear as individu-
alistic behaviour can still form the basis of a social entity. Blomberg supports the
idea that chimpanzees can coordinate their behaviour toward a common goal (e.g.,
capturing prey), even if their intentions remain individualistic . I have indirectly built
on this by arguing that these individual intentions create social entities, such as
hunting teams, without requiring the sophisticated cognitive capacities that human
institutions may demand . We both touch upon the idea of non-conceptual content in
joint actions. Blomberg’s approach implies that collective goals can emerge without
the need for agents to fully represent those goals conceptually. And the argument
offered in this paper similarly emphasises that nonhuman animals’ collective inten-
tions do not necessitate conceptual thought, aligning with Searle’s WDV.
On a similar note, evidence for collaborative hunting among nonhuman primates
may even tell us about the similarities of the capacity for action planning built on
joint intentions in species other than us. Interestingly, drawing on studies on hunter-
gatherer human populations in Paraguay and Venezuela (Kaplan etal., 1985; Walker
etal., 2002), the learning of hunting behaviour of humans has analogous develop-
mental paths to those of Tai chimpanzees, both in terms of the time necessary for
learning and of the age-range during which individuals hunt more frequently and
more efficiently. As Boesch explains, hunting behaviour is a learning process that
starts around 8–10 years and that takes about 20 years of practice in order to be
mastered. Different roles in the hunt require different levels of expertise and can be
performed by more or less experienced individuals. This practice is very demanding
because it requires: 1) the capacity to understand the behaviour of another species,
i.e., the red colobus monkeys, and 2) the capacity to coordinate actions among indi-
viduals towards a common goal across time. A hunting team is thus described: it is a
coalition of individuals, normally up to four, that requires a strategic coordination of
the action of each member towards the same target.
Hunting teams can be acknowledged as instances of social entities upon two out
of the three primitives outlined by Searle: 1) the capacity for collective intentional-
ity, and 2) the capacity for the assignment of functions. These are both thought to
be sufficient conditions for the creation of social entities. Action-free perdurance is
what I take to be the main difference between social entities created upon these two
capacities, and social entities that include the third primitive too, i.e., 3) the capacity
for the assignment of status functions, that is, for the creation of institutional real-
ity. Nevertheless, I maintain that institutional facts, as opposed to proto-normative
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Philosophia
structures, presuppose the ability to establish and sustain a normative state of affairs
beyond immediate action. This capacity is more robustly enabled by language and
conceptual cognition. However, further empirical research is needed to determine
the extent to which nonhuman animals can maintain normative structures indepen-
dently of language.
I emphasize that the concept of “action-free perdurance” captures the unique
proto-institutional feature of these hunting teams, where the social structure exists
only during the performance of the coordinated action.
Boesch describes a parallelism between activities such as those undertaken by
hunting chimpanzees and football players (Boesch, 2005, p. 629), and we may
appreciate the similarities between the two cases in the light of the description of
hunting practices that I analysed above: “Like a team of soccer players, individuals
react opportunistically to the present situation while taking into account the shared
goal of the team. Some players will rarely make a goal, like defenders and goalies,
but the success of the team will critically depend upon their contribution. This is
very reminiscent of group hunting in chimpanzees where synchronisation of differ-
ent coordinated roles, role reversal, and performance of less successful roles favour
the realisation of the joint goal”. However, there are significant differences between
these two examples, which clarify why hunting teams are best characterized as
proto-institutions rather than full institutions.
Specifically, social entities with institutional components, like football teams
or political parties, exist both prior and subsequent to the online coordination of
planned actions. Their existence and normative structure are independent of the
actual performance of joint action. This action-free perdurance is a hallmark of
institutions. By contrast, hunting teams lack this feature: their normative structure
and social ontological status exist only in an online mode, during the actual perfor-
mance of a joint action. For example, while a football team remains identifiable and
normatively structured even when not playing a match, a hunting team is constituted
only during the act of hunting. This distinction stems from the cognitive capacities
required to create and maintain institutional realities. Institutional facts presuppose
the ability to establish and sustain a normative state of affairs even in the absence of
immediate action, a capacity facilitated by language and conceptual thought. Lack-
ing these capacities, creatures such as chimpanzees are unlikely to create entities
with the full normative power and perdurance of institutions. Instead, their coor-
dinated hunting behaviours exemplify proto-institutions—rudimentary forms that
depend on the immediate context of joint action.
Social entities with an institutional component exist prior and subsequently to the
online coordination of planned actions. Their existence is independent of the actual
or online performance of a joint action. Instead, for hunting teams, it seems that
the normative aspect of the social ontological status of such entities only exists in
an online mode, that is during the actual performance of a joint action, as I argued
that cognitive capacities that allow for conceptual thought may be requested for cre-
ating institutional reality, and for maintaining the normative power of institutions.
Since language seems to facilitate the establishment and the perdurance of a state of
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Philosophia
affairs in the absence of online coordination of joint actions, it follows that creatures
lacking conceptual capacities, presumably, lack those for the creation of institutional
facts as well. This is a valuable option that would need further examination.13
5 Conclusion
Group hunting informs us about how chimpanzees manipulate their world—i.e., the
niche they occupy in a given environment (see Cheney & Seyfarth, 1990), and about
how they create social entities such as hunting teams.
As explained in Section2, Searle’s assumes that the foundational primitive for
the creation of social entities, i.e., the capacity for collective intentionality, “is the
psychological presupposition of all social reality” (Searle, 2006, p. 16), where any
social entity is such in that it involves collective intentionality on the side of two
or more, human or nonhuman, conscious agents. Rakoczy and Tomasello (2007)
accuse Searle of over-ascribing cognitive capacities to nonhuman animals in such a
way that leads Searle to mark the uniqueness of the human mind too far, i.e., at the
capacity for the creation of institutional reality rather than at the capacity for collec-
tive intentionality.
As shown in Section 3, this objection to Searle can be justified only if Searle
characterization of the content of mental states as conceptual is correct. But the
replacement of Searle’s notion of the mental content of distal intentions with a less
cognitively demanding notion makes room for the analysis of a large body of empir-
ical work that, in principle, is compatible with Searle’s intuition about the primitive-
ness of the capacity for collective intentionality.
The optimal functioning of hunting teams may contain the first and foundational
primitive of social reality, i.e., the capacity for collective intentionality, and it is
intriguing to think about it as a fitting piece of the puzzle in the evolutionary his-
tory of social reality. Crucially, as argued in Section3, among the elements needed
for the creation of social entities are the capacities to create individual distal inten-
tions and to ascribe individual distal intentions to others, which results in the appre-
ciation of joint distal intentions. Searle advocates the idea that social entities are
created upon the ascription of irreducibly collective distal intentions, but this is
not always the case. For the creation of some social entities, all that is required is
just the ascription of individual distal intentions with meshing sub-plans, as Brat-
man advocates; and, while the ascription of irreducibly collective distal intentions
seems to require the capacity for conceptual thinking, this may not be the case for
the ascription of individual distal intentions with meshing sub-plans. There is much
evidence that (at least rudimentary) social entities exist among animal species other
13 Given the complexity of this issue, the discussion on perdurance and institutional facts may warrant
a separate analysis. While this paper introduces the idea of action-free perdurance as a distinguishing
feature of institutional versus proto-institutional structures, a more comprehensive study of the empirical
literature on nonhuman normativity may strengthen the theoretical framework. I acknowledge that this
aspect of the argument requires further refinement and empirical engagement.
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Philosophia
than humans, and, if this is the case, we urge a theory of social reality that could
account for that. If the ascription of distal intentions is necessary for the creation
of social entities, and if the former can occur in the absence of the uniquely human
capacity for concepts and language, then nonhuman animals may be capable of cre-
ating (primitive) social entities by ascribing mental states, such as some distal inten-
tions, that are nonconceptual.
Authors’ Contributions I am the only contributor.
Funding Open access funding provided by Università degli Studi di Milano within the CRUI-CARE
Agreement.
Data Availability Not applicable.
Declarations
Ethical Approval and Consent to Participate Not applicable.
Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License,
which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long
as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative
Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this
article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line
to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended
use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permis-
sion directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/4.0/.
References
Allen, C. (1999). Animal concepts revisited: The use of self-monitoring as an empirical approach. Erk-
enntnis, 51(1), 537–544.
Allen, C., & Bekoff, M. (1997). Species of mind: The philosophy of biology of cognitive ethology. The
MIT Press.
Andrews, K. (2020). Naïve normativity: The social foundation of moral cognition. Journal of the Ameri-
can Philosophical Association., 6(1), 36–56.
Audi, R. (1973). Intending. Journal of Philosophy., 70, 387–403.
Beardsley, M. C. (1978). Intending. In A. I, Goldman & J. Kim. (Eds.), Values and Morals. Philosophical
Studies Series in Philosophy, 13 (pp. 163–184). Springer, Dordrecht.
Beck, J. (2012). Do animals engage in conceptual thought? Philosophy Compass, 7(3), 218–229.
Bermùdez, J. L. (2007). What is at stake in the debate on nonconceptual content? Philosophical Perspec-
tives, 21(1), 55–72.
Blomberg, O. (2015). An account of Boeschian cooperative behaviour. In C. Misselhorn (Ed.), Collective
agency and cooperation in natural and artificial systems (pp. 169–184). Springer.
Boesch, C. (2005). Joint cooperative hunting among wild chimpanzees: Taking natural observations seri-
ously. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28, 692–693.
Boesch, C., & Boesch - Achermann, H. (2000). The chimpanzees of the Taï forest. Oxford University
Press.
Brand, E. M. (1984). Intending and acting: Toward a naturalized action theory. The MIT Press.
Bratman, E. M. (1987). Intentions, plans and practical reason. Harvard University Press.
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Philosophia
Bratman, E. M. (2009). Modest sociality and the distinctiveness of intention. Philosophical Studies, 144,
149–165.
Bratman, E. M. (2012). The fecundity of planning agency. In D. Shoemaker (Ed.), Oxford studies in
agency and responsibility (pp. 47–69). Oxford University Press.
Bratman, E. M. (2014). Shared agency: A planning theory of acting together. Oxford University Press.
Bratman, M. E. (1992). Shared cooperative activity. The Philosophical Review, 101(2), 327–341.
Bratman, M. E. (2020). Tomasello on “we” and the sense of obligation. Behavioral and Brain Sciences,
43, e62. https:// doi. org/ 10. 1017/ S0140 525X1 90023 83
Buttelman, D., Buttelmann, F., Carpenter, M., Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (2017). Great apes distinguish
true from false beliefs in an interactive helping task. PLoS ONE, 12(4), e0173793.
Butterfill, S. (2011). Joint action and development. Philosophical Quarterly, 62(246), 23–47.
Byrne, A. (2004). Perception and conceptual content. In M. Steup, & J. Turri (Eds.), Contemporary
debates in epistemology (pp.231–250). Blackwell.
Camp, E. (2007). Thinking with maps. Philosophical Perspectives, 21(1), 145–182.
Camp, E. (2009). A language of baboon thought? In R. W. Lurz (Ed.), The philosophy of animal minds
(pp. 108–127). Cambridge University Press.
Chater, N., & Heyes, C. M. (1994). Animal concepts: Content and discontent. Mind and Language, 9(3),
209–246.
Cheney, D. L., & Seyfarth, R. M. (1990). How monkeys see the world: Inside the mind of another species.
University of Chicago Press.
Churchland, P. M. (1970). The logical character of action-explanations. Philosophical Review, 79(2),
214–234.
Clark, A. (2013). Whatever next? Predictive brains, situating agents, and the future of cognitive science.
Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 36(3), 181–204.
Crane, T. (1992). The nonconceptual content of experience. In T. Crane (Ed.), The contents of experience
(pp. 136–157). Cambridge University Press.
Davidson, D. (1980). Essays on action and events. Clarendon Press.
Davidson, D. (1984). Inquiries into truth and interpretation. Clarendon.
de Waal, F. (1982). Chimpanzee politics. Harper and Row.
de Waal, F. (1997). The chimpanzee’s service economy: Food for grooming. Evolution and Human
BehavIor, 18, 375–386.
Duguid, S., & Melis, A. P. (2020). How animals collaborate: Underlying proximate mechanisms. Wiley
Interdisciplinary Reviews. Cognitive Science, 11(5), e1529. https:// doi. org/ 10. 1002/ wcs. 1529
Gallotti, M. (2012). A naturalistic argument for the irreducibility of collective intentionality. Philosophy
of the Social Sciences, 42(1), 3–30.
Gärdenfors, P. (2003). How Homo became sapiens: On the evolution of thinking. Oxford University Press.
Gauker, C. (2002). No conceptual thought without language. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25. https://
doi. org/ 10. 1017/ S0140 525X0 23601 26
Gauker, C. (2005). On the evidence for prelinguistic concepts. Theoria, 29(3), 287–297.
Gauker, C. (2007). On the alleged priority of thought over language. In S. L. Tsohatzidis (Ed.), John
Searle’s philosophy of language: Force, meaning, and thought (pp. 125–142). Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Gilbert, M. (2020). Shared intentionality, joint commitment, and directed obligation. Behavioral and
Brain Sciences, 43. https:// doi. org/ 10. 1017/ S0140 525X1 90026 19
Gilbert, M. (1989). On social facts. Princeton University Press.
Gilbert, M. (2009). Joint commitment: How we make the social world. Oxford University Press.
Goldman, A. (1970). A theory of human action. Princeton University Press.
Goodall, J. (1986). The chimpanzees of Gombe. Belknap Press.
Hare, B., & Tan, J. (2012). How much of our cooperative behaviour is human? In F. B. M. de Waal & P.
F. Ferrari (Eds.), The primate mind (pp. 175–193). Harvard University Press.
Heesen, R., Bangerter, A., Zuberbühler, K., Iglesias, K., Neumann, C., Pajot, A., etal. (2021). Assessing
joint commitment as a process in great apes. iScience, 24, 102872. https:// doi. org/ 10. 1016/j. isci.
2021. 102872
Hohmann, G., & Fruth, B. (2002). Dynamics in social organization of bonobos (Pan paniscus). In C.
Boesch, G. Hohmann, & L. F. Marchant (Eds.), Behavioural diversity in chimpanzees and bonobos
(pp. 138–150). Cambridge University Press.
Holton, R. (2009). Willing, wanting, waiting. Oxford University Press.
Kano, T. (1992). The last ape: Pygmy chimpanzee behaviour and ecology. Stanford University Press.
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Philosophia
Kaplan, H., Hill, K., Cadeliña, R. V., Hayden, B., Hyndman, D. C., Preston, R. J., Smith, E. A., Stuart, D.
A., & Yesner, D. R. (1985). Food sharing among Ache foragers: Tests of explanatory hypotheses.
Current Anthropology, 26(2), 223–246.
Kaufmann, A. (2020). Is that all there is? Or is chimpanzees group hunt “fair” enough? Behavioral and
Brain Sciences, 43, e74.
Krupenye, C., Kano, F., Hirata, S., Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (2016). Great apes anticipate that other indi-
viduals will act according to false beliefs. Science, 354(6308), 110–114.
Lorini, G., Grasso, D. A., & Loi, A. (2024). Are ants not only ‘social insects’, but also ‘nomic insects’? In
search of clues of normativity in the ant world. Behaviour, 161(5), 331–352.
Machery, E. (2009). Doing without concepts. Oxford University Press.
McAninch, A., Goodrich, G., & Allen, C. (2009). Animal communication and neo-expressivism. In R.
Lurz (Ed.), The philosophy of animal minds (pp. 128–144). Cambridge University Press.
Mele, A. R. (1992). The springs of action: Understanding intentional behaviour. Oxford University
Press.
Melis, A. P., & Tomasello, M. (2013). Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) strategic helping in a collaborative
task. Biology Letters, 9, 1–4.
Melis, A., & Tomasello, M. (2019). Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) coordinate by communicating in
a collaborative problem-solving task. Proceedings. Biological Sciences, 286(1901), 20190408.
https:// doi. org/ 10. 1098/ rspb. 2019. 0408
Mitani, J., & Watts, D. (2001). Why do chimpanzees hunt and share meat? Animal Behavior, 61, 915–924.
Moll, H., & Tomasello, M. (2007). Cooperation and human cognition: The Vygotskian intelligence
hypothesis. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 362, 639–648.
https:// doi. org/ 10. 1098/ rspb. 2019. 0408
Muller, M. N., & Mitani, J. C. (2005). Conflict and cooperation in wild chimpanzees. In P. J. B. Slater,
J. Rosenblatt, C. Snowdon, T. Roper, & M. Naguib (Eds.), Advances in the study of behavior (pp.
275–331). Elsevier.
Nishida, T. (1983). Alpha status and agonistic alliance in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schwein-
furthii). Primates, 24, 318–336.
Nishida, T., Uehara, S., & Nyundo, R. (1979). Predatory behavior among wild chimpanzees of the
Mahale Mountains. Primates, 20, 1–20.
Pacherie, E. (2000). The content of intentions. Mind & Language, 15(4), 400–432.
Pacherie, E. (2007). Is collective intentionality really primitive? In M. Beaney, C. Penco, & M. Vignolo
(Eds.), Mental processes: Representing and inferring (pp. 153–175). Cambridge Scholars Press.
Pacherie, E. (2008). The phenomenology of action: A conceptual framework. Cognition, 107(1),
179–217.
Pacherie, E. (2011). Framing joint action. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 2(2), 173–192.
Parish, A. (1994). Female relationships in bonobos (Pan paniscus): Evidence for bonding, cooperation,
and female dominance in a male-philopatric species. Human Nature, 7, 61–96.
Peacocke, C. (1992). A study of concepts. The MIT Press.
Peacocke, C. (1997). Concepts without words. In R. Heck (Ed.), Language, thought, and logic (pp. 1–33).
Oxford University Press.
Peacocke, C. (2009). Mental action and self-awareness (II): Epistemology. In L. O’Brien & M. Soteriou
(Eds.), Mental actions (pp. 192–214). Oxford University Press.
Peacocke, C. (2014). Interpersonal self-consciousness. Philosophical Studies, 170(1), 1–24.
Peacocke, C. (2016). The mirror of the world: Subject, consciousness, and self-consciousness. Oxford
University Press.
Rakoczy, H., & Tomasello, M. (2007). The ontogeny of social ontology. In S. L. Tsohatzidis (Ed.), Inten-
tional acts and institutional facts: Essays on John Searle’s social ontology (pp. 113–137). Theory
and Decision Library, Springer.
Rescorla, M. (2009). Chrysippus’s dog as a case study in non-linguistic cognition. In R. Lurz (Ed.), Phi-
losophy of animal minds (pp. 52–71). Cambridge University Press.
Rescorla, M. (2013). Bayesian perceptual psychology. In M. Matthen (Ed.), Oxford handbook of philoso-
phy of perception (pp. 694–761). Oxford University Press.
Schellenberg, S. (2013). A trilemma about mental content. In J. Schear (Ed.), Mind, reason, and being-in-
the-world (pp. 272–282). Routledge.
Searle, J. (2015). Seeing things as they are: A theory of perception. Oxford University Press.
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Philosophia
Searle, J. R. (1990). Collective intentions and actions. In P. Cohen, J. Morgan, & M. Pollack (Eds.),
Intentions in communication (pp. 90–105), Cambridge University Press. Reprinted in Searle, J. R.
(2002). Consciousness and language. Cambridge University Press (pp 90–105).
Searle, J. R. (2014). Are there social objects?. In M. Gallotti spsampsps J. Michael (Eds.), Perspectives
on social ontology and social cognition, Springer Series Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality.
Springer.
Searle, J. R. (1979). What is an intentional state? Mind, 88, 74–92.
Searle, J. R. (1983). Intentionality: An essay in the philosophy of mind. Cambridge University Press.
Searle, J. R. (1994). Animal minds. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 19(1), 206–219.
Searle, J. R. (1995). The construction of social reality. The Free Press.
Searle, J. R. (2006). Social ontology: Some basic principles. Anthropological Theory, 6(1), 12–29.
Searle, J. R. (2010). Making the social world. Oxford University Press.
Shepherd, J. (2014). The contours of control. Philosophical Studies, 17(1), 395–411.
Sinhababu, N. (2015). Advantages of propositionalism. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 96(2), 165–180.
Stalnaker, R. (2003). What might nonconceptual content be? (1998). In Y. Gunther (Ed.), Essays on non-
conceptual content, MIT Press.
Tan, J., Ariely, D., & Hare, B. (2017). Bonobos respond prosocially toward members of other groups.
Scientific Reports, 7, 14733.
Tomasello, M. (2003). On the different origins of symbols and grammar. In M. H. Christiansen & S.
Kirby (Eds.), Language evolution (pp. 94–110). Oxford University Press.
Tomasello, M. (2014). A natural history of human thinking. Harvard University Press.
Tomasello, M. (2016). A natural history of human morality. Harvard University Press.
Tomasello, M. (2020). The moral psychology of obligation. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 43(e56),
1–58.
Tomasello, M., & Call, J. (1997). Primate cognition. Oxford University Press.
Tomasello, M., & Carpenter, M. (2007). Shared intentionality”. Developmental Science., 10(1), 121–125.
Tomasello, M., Melis, A., Tennie, C., Wyman, E., & Herrmann, E. (2012). Two key steps in the evolution
of human cooperation: The Interdependency Hypothesis. Current Anthropology, 53(6), 673–692.
Vervaecke, H., de Vries, H., & van Elsacker, L. (2000). Function and distribution of coalitions in captive
bonobos (Pan paniscus). Primates, 41, 249–265.
Von Rohr, C. R., Koski, S. E., Burkart, J. M., Caws, C., Fraser, O. N., Ziltener, A., & Van Schaik, C. P.
(2012). Impartial third-party interventions in captive chimpanzees: A reflection of community con-
cern. PLoS ONE, 7(3), e32494.
Walker, R., Hill, K., Kaplan, H., & McMillan, G. (2002). Age dependency of hunting ability among the
Ache of eastern Paraguay. Journal of Human Evolution., 42, 639–657.
Watts, D. (2002). Reciprocity and interchange in the social relationships of wild male chimpanzees.
Behaviour, 139, 343–370.
Watts, D., & Mitani, J. (2001). Boundary patrols and intergroup encounters in wild chimpanzees. Animal
Behaviour, 138, 299–327.
Weiskopf, D. A. (2008). The origins of concepts. Philosophical Studies, 140(3), 359–384.
Westra, E., Fitzpatrick, S., Brosnan, S. F., Gruber, T., Hobaiter, C., Hopper, L. M., ..., & Andrews, K.
(2024). In search of animal normativity: A framework for studying social norms in non‐human
animals. Biological Reviews, 99(3), 1058–1074.
Williams, J., Oehlert, G., Carlis, J., & Pusey, A. (2004). Why do male chimpanzees defend a group range?
Animal Behavior., 68, 523–532.
Wilson, R. (2007). Social reality and institutional facts: Sociality within and without intentionality. In S.
L. Tsohatzidis (Ed.), Intentional acts and institutional facts: Essays on John Searle’s social ontol-
ogy (pp. 139–153). Springer.
Wrangham, R. (1999). The evolution of coalitionary killing. American Journal of Physical Anthropology,
42, 1–30.
Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps
and institutional affiliations.
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Terms and Conditions
Springer Nature journal content, brought to you courtesy of Springer Nature Customer Service Center
GmbH (“Springer Nature”).
Springer Nature supports a reasonable amount of sharing of research papers by authors, subscribers
and authorised users (“Users”), for small-scale personal, non-commercial use provided that all
copyright, trade and service marks and other proprietary notices are maintained. By accessing,
sharing, receiving or otherwise using the Springer Nature journal content you agree to these terms of
use (“Terms”). For these purposes, Springer Nature considers academic use (by researchers and
students) to be non-commercial.
These Terms are supplementary and will apply in addition to any applicable website terms and
conditions, a relevant site licence or a personal subscription. These Terms will prevail over any
conflict or ambiguity with regards to the relevant terms, a site licence or a personal subscription (to
the extent of the conflict or ambiguity only). For Creative Commons-licensed articles, the terms of
the Creative Commons license used will apply.
We collect and use personal data to provide access to the Springer Nature journal content. We may
also use these personal data internally within ResearchGate and Springer Nature and as agreed share
it, in an anonymised way, for purposes of tracking, analysis and reporting. We will not otherwise
disclose your personal data outside the ResearchGate or the Springer Nature group of companies
unless we have your permission as detailed in the Privacy Policy.
While Users may use the Springer Nature journal content for small scale, personal non-commercial
use, it is important to note that Users may not:
use such content for the purpose of providing other users with access on a regular or large scale
basis or as a means to circumvent access control;
use such content where to do so would be considered a criminal or statutory offence in any
jurisdiction, or gives rise to civil liability, or is otherwise unlawful;
falsely or misleadingly imply or suggest endorsement, approval , sponsorship, or association
unless explicitly agreed to by Springer Nature in writing;
use bots or other automated methods to access the content or redirect messages
override any security feature or exclusionary protocol; or
share the content in order to create substitute for Springer Nature products or services or a
systematic database of Springer Nature journal content.
In line with the restriction against commercial use, Springer Nature does not permit the creation of a
product or service that creates revenue, royalties, rent or income from our content or its inclusion as
part of a paid for service or for other commercial gain. Springer Nature journal content cannot be
used for inter-library loans and librarians may not upload Springer Nature journal content on a large
scale into their, or any other, institutional repository.
These terms of use are reviewed regularly and may be amended at any time. Springer Nature is not
obligated to publish any information or content on this website and may remove it or features or
functionality at our sole discretion, at any time with or without notice. Springer Nature may revoke
this licence to you at any time and remove access to any copies of the Springer Nature journal content
which have been saved.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, Springer Nature makes no warranties, representations or
guarantees to Users, either express or implied with respect to the Springer nature journal content and
all parties disclaim and waive any implied warranties or warranties imposed by law, including
merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose.
Please note that these rights do not automatically extend to content, data or other material published
by Springer Nature that may be licensed from third parties.
If you would like to use or distribute our Springer Nature journal content to a wider audience or on a
regular basis or in any other manner not expressly permitted by these Terms, please contact Springer
Nature at
onlineservice@springernature.com