EPISTEMOLOGY IN GROUP AGENCY: SIX OBJECTIONS IN SEARCH OF THE TRUTH

Episteme ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 255-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabrizio Cariani
Keyword(s):  
New Wave ◽  
Group Agency ◽  
Group Agents

AbstractList and Pettit's Group Agency is an extremely important book, spearheading a new wave of work on the metaphysics, epistemology and ethics of group agents. In this article, I focus on the epistemological thread in their discussion. After introducing the apparatus they use in analyzing the epistemic performance of groups, I criticize some elements and point to some ways in which the very same apparatus could be redirected to address them.

The Easy Approach to Group Agency. A Simple Realist View on Group Agents

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-102
Author(s):  
Andreea Popescu
Keyword(s):  
Group Agency ◽  
Group Agents ◽  
Realist View ◽  
As If

"We talk about groups as doing something, we talk as if groups have agency. Is our talk legitimate? Are there group agents? Is there something like group agency? In this paper, I discuss two ontological frameworks concerning existence questions: the Quinean framework and the Thomasson-Carnap framework. I apply them to the problem of group agency. I review the Quinean-oriented literature debating the existence of group agents and its methodological background. I argue, via Thomasson’s easy approach to ontology, that deflationism can simplify the debate surrounding group agents. Thus, I argue for a Thomasson-Carnap framework and show that it is better suited to answer the particular question whether there are group agents. More specifically, I argue for a non-reductive simple realist view on group agents, i.e. I argue for the truth of “There are group agents,” via analytic entailments, by truths about the actions and deeds of groups. Keywords: Analytic Entailments, Deflationism, Group agency, Group agents, Simple Realism "

Is Our Group An Agent? Do We Want It To Be?

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 539-551
Author(s):  
Mark N. Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Real World ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Group Agency ◽  
Excellent Starting Point ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Legal Nature ◽  
Political Associations ◽  
Group Agents ◽  
Ideal Group

Christian List and Philip Pettit’s new book, Group Agency: The Possibility, Design, and Status of Corporate Agents, is an interesting, timely, and extremely clever synthesis of the deliverances of their recent technical work on the philosophical, moral and legal nature of group agents. Their meticulously developed ideal group agent provides an excellent starting point for analytic reflection on group agency, identity, epistemology, and responsibility. Insofar as it is their intent for their account to have real world consequences, their model provides a template for political associations, businesses, and civil society organizations. This review essay explains List and Pettit’s model and then points out two unattractive features. First, a bird’s eye view of the conditions required to achieve ideal group agency reveals limitations that may make it impossible to realize. Second, some of these groups, especially businesses and civil society organizations, will find the model unattractive, limiting its real world applicability.

MUST GROUP AGENTS BE RATIONAL? LIST AND PETTIT'S THEORY OF JUDGEMENT AGGREGATION AND GROUP AGENCY

2012 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Sugden
Keyword(s):  
Group Agency ◽  
Discursive Dilemma ◽  
Judgement Aggregation ◽  
Philip Pettit ◽  
Group Agents

As a writing partnership, Christian List and Philip Pettit are probably best known for a paper in Economics and Philosophy that describes and generalizes the ‘discursive dilemma’ (List and Pettit 2002). That paper is one of the main points of reference for what is now a large literature on the aggregation of judgements – a literature to which List and Pettit have continued to contribute, individually and jointly. Their new book Group Agency reviews and synthesizes that body of work, and proposes an analysis of group agency in which the aggregation of judgements plays a central role.

HOW TO BE A REDUNDANT REALIST

Episteme ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurt L. Sylvan
Keyword(s):  
Group Agency ◽  
Personal Belief ◽  
True Reading ◽  
The Status ◽  
Group Belief ◽  
Three Stages ◽  
Group Agents ◽  
Striking Fact

AbstractIn Group Agency, List and Pettit (L&P) defend ‘non-redundant realism’ about group agency, a view on which (A) facts about group agents are not ‘readily reducible’ to facts about individuals, and (B) the dependence of group agents on individuals is so holistic that one cannot predict facts about group agents on the basis of facts about their members. This paper undermines L&P's case in three stages. §1 shows that L&P's core argument is invalid. L&P infer (A) and (B) from two facts: (1) that group agents must often believe what few members personally believe, and (2) that a group agent's beliefs in certain propositions must often ‘depend on’ member attitudes to distinct propositions. I note that (2) is ambiguous, and that the only true reading of it is irrelevant to the status of (A). I argue further that (1) cannot support (A), since a group agent's belief in P may neatly constitutively depend on member attitudes to P that are weaker than personal belief. §2 makes this idea concrete with a plausible toy theory of group belief that implies it. While this kind of theory is popular in the literature on joint belief, L&P never discuss it – a striking fact, since it explains why (1) is true. Having made these points, I turn to argue in §3 that (B) is either false or uncontroversial.

GROUP AGENCY AND EPISTEMIC DEPENDENCY

Episteme ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 235-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Dewitt
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Epistemic Dependence ◽  
Group Agency ◽  
Agency Model ◽  
Group Agent ◽  
Or Groups ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Group Agents

AbstractModern epistemic questions have largely been focused around the individual and her ability to acquire knowledge autonomously. More recently epistemologists have begun to look more broadly in providing accounts of knowledge by considering its social context, where the individual depends on others for true beliefs. Hardwig explains the effect of this shift starkly, arguing that to reject epistemic dependency is to deny certain true beliefs widely held throughout society and, more specifically, it is to deny that science and scholarship can provide true belief. Alternatively, Hardwig argues that beliefs could be granted to communities or groups but denied to individuals. This paper approaches these broad assertions using a group agency model from List and Pettit. Through a discussion of the ‘epistemic desideratum’ of group agents, I conclude that List and Pettit give us reason to accept some of Hardwig's concerns, but that attributing beliefs to groups does not require us to deny them to individuals, rather an individual can use a group agent as a source of epistemic dependence.

scholarly journals Accounting for groups: the dynamics of intragroup deliberation

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. McKenzie Alexander ◽  
Julia Morley
Keyword(s):  
Prima Facie ◽  
Group Agency ◽  
Close Inspection ◽  
Judgement Aggregation ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Work List ◽  
Widespread Phenomenon ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Normative Constraints ◽  
Group Agents

AbstractIn a highly influential work, List and Pettit (Group Agency: The Possibility, Design, and Status of Corporate Agents, Oxford University Press, 2011) draw upon the theory of judgement aggregation to offer an argument for the existence of nonreductive group agents; they also suggest that nonreductive group agency is a widespread phenomenon. In this paper, we argue for the following two claims. First, that the axioms they consider cannot naturally be interpreted as either descriptive characterisations or normative constraints upon group judgements, in general. This makes it unclear how the List and Pettit argument is to apply to real world group behaviour. Second, by examining empirical data about how group judgements are made by a powerful international regulatory board, we show how each of the List and Pettit axioms can be violated in ways which are straightforwardly explicable at the level of the individual. This suggests that group agency may best be understood as a pluralistic phenomenon, where close inspection of the dynamics of intragroup deliberation can reveal that what prima facie appears to be a nonreductive group agent is, in fact, reducible.

scholarly journals The Problem of the First Belief: Group Agents and Responsibility

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Onni Hirvonen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Moral Agency ◽  
Moral Community ◽  
Collective Decision ◽  
Collective Decision Making ◽  
Group Agency ◽  
Group Agents

AbstractAttributing moral responsibility to an agent requires that the agent is a capable member of a moral community. Capable members of a moral community are often thought of as moral reasoners (or moral persons) and, thus, to attribute moral responsibility to collective agents would require showing that they are capable of moral reasoning. It is argued here that those theories that understand collective reasoning and collective moral agency in terms of collective decision-making and commitment – as is arguably the case with Christian List and Philip Pettit’s theory of group agency – face the so-called “problem of the first belief” that threatens to make moral reasoning impossible for group agents. This paper introduces three possible solutions to the problem and discusses the effects that these solutions have in regard to the possibility of attributing moral responsibility to groups.

New wave machine

Nature ◽  
2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Ball
Keyword(s):  
New Wave

Coming-of-Age Cinema in New Zealand

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alistair Fox
Keyword(s):  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
French New Wave ◽  
Significant Phenomenon ◽  
The Impact ◽  
New Zealanders

This book investigates the coming-of-age genre as a significant phenomenon in New Zealand’s national cinema, tracing its development from the 1970s to the present day. A preliminary chapter identifies the characteristics of the coming-of-age film as a genre, tracing its evolution and the influence of the French New Wave and European Art Cinema, and speculating on the role of the genre in the output of national cinemas. Through case studies of fifteen significant films, including The God Boy, Sleeping Dogs, The Scarecrow, Vigil, Mauri, An Angel at My Table, Heavenly Creatures, Once Were Warriors, Rain, Whale Rider, In My Father’s Den, 50 Ways of Saying Fabulous, Boy, Mahana, and Hunt for the Wilderpeople, subsequent chapters examine thematic preoccupations of filmmakers such as the impact of repressive belief systems and social codes, the experience of cultural dislocation, the expression of a Māori perspective through an indigenous “Fourth Cinema,” bicultural relationships, and issues of sexual identity, arguing that these films provide a unique insight into the cultural formation of New Zealanders. Given that the majority of films are adaptations of literary sources, the book also explores the dialogue each film conducts with the nation’s literature, showing how the time frame of each film is updated in a way that allows these films to be considered as a register of important cultural shifts that have occurred as New Zealanders have sought to discover their emerging national identity.

British Television's Lost New Wave Moment: Single Drama and Race

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 612-627 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleni Liarou
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Black Population ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Audiovisual Material ◽  
British Drama ◽  
History Of ◽  
White Working Class ◽  
Written Sources

The article argues that the working-class realism of post-WWII British television single drama is neither as English nor as white as is often implied. The surviving audiovisual material and written sources (reviews, publicity material, biographies of television writers and directors) reveal ITV's dynamic role in offering a range of views and representations of Britain's black population and their multi-layered relationship with white working-class cultures. By examining this neglected history of postwar British drama, this article argues for more inclusive historiographies of British television and sheds light on the dynamism and diversity of British television culture.

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