Papers by Hans Bernhard Schmid
Zeitschrift für Kollektivwissenschaft, 2019
Entschuldigen Sie bitte -kennen wir uns schon?" Wenn wir uns persönlich begegnen, ist es uns oft ... more Entschuldigen Sie bitte -kennen wir uns schon?" Wenn wir uns persönlich begegnen, ist es uns oft ein besonderes Anliegen zu unterscheiden, ob wir uns neu kennenlernen, oder ob wir bereits persönlich miteinander bekannt sind. Denn Neubegegnungen und das damit verbundene Kennenlernen sind nun einmal etwas ganz anderes als die Wiederbegegnungen mit bereits Bekannten, und Unbekannte sind etwas anderes als Bekannte, und wir wollen diesem Unterschied in unserer Begegnung Rechnung tragen. Menschen, die wir schon kennen -Bekannten -, begegnen wir auf fundamental andere Weise als Unbekannten. Unbekannte lernen wir in der Begegnung erst kennen; wir begegnen ihnen freundlich, aber eben nicht mit der Freundschaftlichkeit, die Bekannten gebührt. In der Freundlichkeit Unbekannten gegenüber signalisieren wir Offenheit für Freundschaftlichkeit, aber diese Freundschaftlichkeit besteht jetzt eben noch nicht. Dieser Unterschied zählt -und nicht immer sind wir uns sicher. In der freundlichen Haltung jemandem zu begegnen, den mit dem man eigentlich schon bekannt ist und der oder dem man daher freundschaftlich begegnen sollte, verkennt die * Hans Bernhard Schmid ist Inhaber der Professur für Politische Philosophie und Sozialphilosophie an der Fakultät für Philosophie und Bildungswissenschaft der Universität Wien.
This paper examines the ways in which group speech acts involve speakers. Against the view that g... more This paper examines the ways in which group speech acts involve speakers. Against the view that groups need spokespeople speak for (or on behalf of, or in the name of) them, I argue that groups can speak for themselves. Group speech acts are a special type of joint intentional action. Groups speak when they express their illocutionary intention. Group illocutionary intentions are collective intentions of their members, and they are collective in virtue of the members' plural pre-reflective self-knowledge of what it is theytogether want to say. It is only in virtue of the groups' ability to speak for themselves that they can authorize individual spokespeople to speak for them. 1
In the second book of his Confessions, Augustine of Hippo presents his famous juvenile Pear Theft... more In the second book of his Confessions, Augustine of Hippo presents his famous juvenile Pear Theft as an apparent case of acting under the guise of the bad. At least since Thomas Aquinas' influential interpretation, scholars have usually taken Augustine's detailed discussion of the case to be dispelling this Bguise of the guise of the bad^, and to offer a solid Bguise of the good^-explanation. This paper addresses an important challenge to this view: Augustine offers two different Bguise of the good^-explanations in his text rather than just one, and the two explanations seem to be mutually exclusive. A number of more recent attempts to reconcile Augustine's two lines of explanation are discussed and found wanting, and a new suggestion is made. The proposed solution focuses on the Pear Theft as a joint action, and it departs from the Aquinian interpretation in that it accounts for a way in which the Bguise of the bad^-hypothesis survives the explanation. Keywords Evil. Guise of the good. Joint action. Augustine. Aquinas
There are many things people should do-and some of those are things people can only do jointly, t... more There are many things people should do-and some of those are things people can only do jointly, together with others. A well-organized society usually has corporate agencies for these tasks. Since crime intervention in larger communities is too big a task for a single sheriff, we have our police departments. To fight fires that nobody can put out by him-or herself there is the fire department. The ambulance is in charge of medical emergencies, for poverty and deprivation there are the social services, for moral catastrophes in remote corners of the world we have foreign aid, and so on. These and similar organizations are the agents to take care of those morally sensitive tasks which no one can perform alone.
Most social roles require role identification from the side of the role occupant, yet whoever ide... more Most social roles require role identification from the side of the role occupant, yet whoever identifies him- or herself with his or her social roles thereby mistakes him- or herself for what he or she is not, because role identity is determined by other people’s normative expectations, whereas self-identity is self-determined. This paper first develops an interpretation of this existential paradox of role identity, and then suggests a Rousseauvian perspective on how the tension between being oneself and playing one’s social roles may be a matter of politics rather than a matter of the metaphysics of selfhood. The paper concludes with a cautionary remark on just how much Jacobinism a political solution to the existential paradox of role identity might entail.
Phenom Cogn Sci, 2018
This paper examines and compares the ways in which mind of the forms “I intend” and “we intend” i... more This paper examines and compares the ways in which mind of the forms “I intend” and “we intend” is subjective. It is argued that that mind of the form “I intend” is subjective in that it is self-known. The sort of knowledge at stake here is special in that it is self-identifying, self-validating, self-committing, and self-authorizing. It is further argued that in spite of apparent differences, mind of the form “we intend” is subjective in the same way. The self-knowledge at work here is plural rather than singular. This supports a plural subject account of collective intentionality. It is argued that the worries sometimes raised in the literature against the metaphysical “spookiness” of plural subjects are due to a fundamental misconception of the way in which either form of mind is subjective.
This paper uses Google Ngrams to investigate into the history of the term Volksgeist, as well as ... more This paper uses Google Ngrams to investigate into the history of the term Volksgeist, as well as of related terms. It is argued that the term is deeply rooted in – and shares the fate of – German Nationalism. However, some aspects of the underlying idea survive under other labels.
One conception of collective emotion is that of one token emotional disposition, episode, or atti... more One conception of collective emotion is that of one token emotional disposition, episode, or attitude with many participants. Such emotions are a collective’s. This conception has been criticized on phenomenological and ontological grounds, and it has recently been depicted as a piece of political ideology. This paper focuses on Max Scheler’s conception of collective emotion which some of those who are sympathetic to the idea in the recent debate have endorsed. It is argued that while it withstands the phenomenological and ontological objections, the issue of political ideology has to be taken seriously.
The basic function of emotion in life is to know what matters in a situation in a way that tightl... more The basic function of emotion in life is to know what matters in a situation in a way that tightly connects cognition to evaluation and action. Emotions focus our attention on what’s significant in the light of our aims and values, and they dispose us to act. Emotions are thus practical knowledge par excellence. As such, they are indispensable, at least for our kind of agency. To put all of this in a simple slogan: emotions are our way of getting our act together.
This chapter opens with a discussion of how this works in the individual case (1.), and then proceeds to examining how this carries over to joint action (2.). It is argued that in spite of some important differences between these cases, in order for us to get our joint act together, we need to know what matters to us. For such knowledge to be suitably related to action, it has to involve a single unified evaluative perspective (3.). The way in which this perspective is unified is plural self-knowledge: a non-observational and non-inferential sense of our concerns as ours. Such emotion is a collection’s, or a group’s; its subject is plural rather than singular.
According to Aristotle, our ultimate purpose in life is to be well, and well-being is in virtuous... more According to Aristotle, our ultimate purpose in life is to be well, and well-being is in virtuous action over a lifetime. While the concepts of well-being and virtue are subject to heated controversies in the received literature, most interpretations tacitly assume a distributive reading of Aristotle’s basic claim. In this reading, well-being is what each of us wants in his or her own life, and it is in the agent’s own virtuous action over his or her own lifetime. A distributive reading can easily accommodate other-regarding and impartial attitudes, as well as the view that no agent can be truly well without the well-being of those with whom he or she lives together. However, no distributive reading can accommodate the view that agents who live closely together in egalitarian relations participate in each other’s well-being in such a way that one agent’s well-being is, in parts, also another’s. In his analysis of virtuous friendship, however, Aristotle points towards such a participatory view. It has been claimed repeatedly in the received literature that any such view has unacceptable consequences, as it extends the subject of well-being in a way that ignores the basic separateness of persons. Taking another person’s well-being to be one’s own seems to disrespect the other person’s own agency. The core claim of this paper is that these passages should be reconstructed as suggesting a collective reading of Aristotle’s basic view that complements rather than replaces the distributive view. In this collective reading, what we jointly want to do in our shared life is to be well together, and that being well together is in virtuous joint activity over the time of living together. It is argued that Aristotle’s participatory conception of well-being does not undermine the participants’ own agency as it is in their common sense of action that they are unified to a plural subject of well-being. Common sense of joint action is the participants’ plural pre-reflective self-awareness of their action as theirs, collectively. The extension of the subject of well-being to we-groups broadens our view on how well-being is subjective or first-personal and opens up a plural perspective on the good.
The core topic of Raimo Tuomela's recent book on Social Ontology -Collective Intentionality and G... more The core topic of Raimo Tuomela's recent book on Social Ontology -Collective Intentionality and Group Agents (2014) is the relation between collective intentionality and group agents. Intuitively speaking, collective intentionality is the sharing of attitudes such as our joint intention to realize a certain goal, our agreed-upon shared belief about a matter of concern for our group, or the collective emotion of joy at the success of a joint action. Group agency is the idea that not only individuals, but groups, too, can be (epistemic or practical) agents and thus have intentional attitudes (such as in the case of a business company that has goals, a board of experts that has beliefs, or perhaps a political party that has fears). Both phenomena seem to be closely related, yet not any case of collective intentionality involves a "proper" group agent, and if a proper group agent acts, this is typically rather different from the members' collectively going for a walk together. In his book, Tuomela presents a nuanced view of the relation between collective intentionality and group agents based on a careful examination of both terms. The central claims are that collective intentionality is an irreducible and relational mode of the intentionality of (suitably related) individuals, that only the intentionality of individuals is of the intrinsic kind, that group agents are derived from collective intentional attitudes, and that group agents have only extrinsic intentionality. Intrinsic intentionality is intentionality that comes with "raw feels and qualia" (Tuomela 2014, 3) and is independent of external ascription. Group agents do not have intentionality of this sort. They do not experience raw feels and qualia, and have intentional attitudes only in virtue of "the members' reflexive performative collective construction of contents for the group" (15f.) or "reflexive collective acceptance" (8), that is, in virtue of the content of collectively intentional attitudes. As is well known, Tuomela has developed his account of collective intentionality in his earlier work, and it is this account on which he draws in this book. The core idea -spelled out for the case of practical collective intentionality -is that where people share an intention, each participant intends to do what he or she conceives to be his or her part in the jointly intended action, believes that his or her partners are suitably disposed to contribute their shares, and assumes that this is common knowledge between them (for the full analysis cf. Tuomela 2014, 78f.). These are the core features of what Tuomela understands as "weintention". We-intentions are intentions held by individuals, but Tuomela makes it distinctively clear in this book that they are not to be conceived of something that is "merely a subjective state of an individual" or "only in the 'individual's head'" (ibid.) in the way John Searle sometimes makes it sound in his writings on collective intentionality. Rather, weintention "is a relational state". This suggests that if in a dream, an individual intends to do her part in a joint endeavor with some imagined partners whom she believes to be suitably disposed, that individual does not we-intend, but rather has an illusion of a we-intention. Individual we-intenders need to be related in such a way that it is possible to say that there is an intention they share -it is then not just the case that you and I, distributively, we-intend to go for a walk together. Rather, this intention is ours, collectively. Tuomela captures this important and indeed fundamental insight by saying that shared intention is "conceptually prior" to we-intention (79). It is not the case that the intention we share can be reduced to each participant's own participatory intention; rather, in order to intend and to act intentionally in a participatory way, there has to be the whole in which the participant takes part. Tuomela's account of collective intentionality is, in other words, strongly non-reductivist
Whatever definition of "robot" may eventually come to be generally accepted (if any at all), it i... more Whatever definition of "robot" may eventually come to be generally accepted (if any at all), it is hard to imagine that it will not include some version of the idea of an artificial, mechanical simulation, replacement, or a substitute for natural agents, especially (but not only) humans. If this is true, the concept of "robot" obviously entails a great deal of evaluative aspects. The idea of simulating, replacing, or substituting humans comes with hopes and fears and engages the values and disvalues on which these and similar attitudes are focused. "Robot" is thus a comparatively "thick" concept -it is a matter of evaluation as much as of description, and robo-philosophy thus cannot ignore the evaluative dimension. Or, to put it more colloquially: in order to find out something about our concept of "robot", we should also examine how we feel about robots. Many of the feelings in question seem to be of the wary kind. There is some fascination with new technology, but genuine robo-enthusiasm is rare. It seems that we do not really like the idea of being simulated, let alone replaced. If our current industrial robots are widely accepted or even acclaimed in the public discourse, it is not because we genuinely like the idea of substituting humans by robots, but rather because this seems to be the only means of stopping the decades-long trend of de-industrialization in western countries in a globalized economy. The general sentiment seems to be that it is better to accept the price of automatization than losing the secondary economic sector to developing countries altogether, where human labor is cheap. This seems to be the reason why the pictures of whole assembly lines that are practically devoid of human presence and where production is now largely in the "hands" of robots, do not seem to stir much public sentiment. With recent developments of robot technology and artificial intelligence, however, the public sentiment seems to be changing. We accept handing over the primary and secondary economic sector to robots, but as robots -with their virtual or software siblings, the botsnow seem ready to do service work and thus enter the tertiary sector as well, hence the domain of interaction, the debate takes on different tones. It seems to be o.k. for robots to serve us in production, but having them serve us in interaction with them somehow raises a new kind of worries. Some degree of fear of robots now seems to be the dominant feelinglet us call it robophobia, and use the term in as neutral a way as possible, leaving open the question of whether robophobia expresses an exaggerated, inadequate, and ultimately irrational attitude, or an adequate sense of the danger implied in the potentials of robotechnology. As a recent and rather drastic example, Steven Hawkins is reported in global media to have issued the warning that "artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race", 1 and with other prominent figures joining this most recent surge of robophobia, the press headlined: "Bill Gates says we should fear a robot uprising: Microsoft co-founder says he agrees with Elon Musk' on dangers of AI." 2 The wording of these and similar voices and the imagery used in these warnings are significant. Indeed it seems that the fear of a robot-uprising that ends the human race, hyperbolic as it may seem, is an idea that is built into the very conception of the "robot" right from the origin of the word in Karel Capek's 1920 play "Rossum's Universal Robots".
An influential view argues that in order to act intentionally, the agent needs to know what he or... more An influential view argues that in order to act intentionally, the agent needs to know what he or she is doing. Such self-knowledge, it is claimed, is epistemically distinctive in that it is "groundless" -non-observational and non-inferential. This paper investigates how this view relates to the theory of intentional joint action. Is our knowledge of what we are doing together with others -collectively, as a team or a group -of the same groundless kind? The paper is divided in three sections. The first section unpacks the idea of groundless (individual) self-knowledge, as developed by E.G.M. Anscombe, and in more recent philosophical research. Plausible features of self-knowledge include first-person identity, first-person perspective, first-person commitment, and first person authority (1.). The second section plays the part of the individualist's advocate. In order to know what we are doing, I need to know what my partners are doing, too, and it seems that observation and inference are the only sources of knowledge of other people's actions (2.). The third section defends a moderate version of groundless group self-knowledge. The knowledge in question is plural prereflective and non-thematic self-awareness of what it is the participants are doing together (3.). 1. Groundless self-knowledge unpacked 1 I wish to thank Miranda Fricker, Michael Brady, Katharina Bernhard, and the participants of the Social Ontology-Colloquium at the University of Vienna for helpful comments.
Under normal circumstances, saying that you have a thought, a belief, a desire, or an intention d... more Under normal circumstances, saying that you have a thought, a belief, a desire, or an intention differs from saying that somebody (who happens to be you) has that attitude. The former statement comes with some form of first person authority and constitutes commitments that are not involved in the latter case. Speaking with first person authority, and thereby publicly committing oneself, is a practice that plays an important role in our communication and in our understanding of what it means to be a person. In their Group Agency, Christian List and Philip Pettit argue that some corporations are agents with attitudes of their own, and they claim that they are persons. The question on which this paper is focused is: Can corporations (groups with attitudes and the capacity for linguistic communication) participate in this practice, that is, can they express their attitudes with first person authority, and thereby enter first person commitments? The first section of the paper gives a rough (and, I hope, ecumenical) account of some features of first person authority and commitment. The second section examines if and how this account of first person authority carries over to corporations. It is argued that the possibility for groups to express their attitudes with straightforward first person authority, and thus to enter first person commitments, are extremely limited. The third part of the paper argues that while under normal circumstances, a member’s expression of her group’s attitudes in first person plural terms does not constitute straightforward first person authority, it does come with something resembling some aspects of the first-personal commitments encountered in the singular case.
This paper discusses Darwall's interpretation of Milgramian "obedience to authority", in which se... more This paper discusses Darwall's interpretation of Milgramian "obedience to authority", in which second-personal norms, second-person authority, and the power of (second-personal) address play key explanatory roles. A series of arguments against this reading is presented, and a different view is suggested, according to which second-personal authority and address have very little explanatory power. Important parts of Milgramian obedience have to be understood in the light of the human ability to look at cooperative ventures from a shared point of view. Some consequences for a more adequate understanding of the relation between the second-person and the first-person-plural standpoints are explored.
It has been claimed in the literature that collective intentionality and group attitudes presuppo... more It has been claimed in the literature that collective intentionality and group attitudes presuppose some “sense of ‘us’” among the participants (other labels sometimes used are “sense of community,” “communal awareness,” “shared point of view,” or “we-perspective”). While this seems plausible enough on an intuitive level, little attention has been paid so far to the question of what the nature and role of this mysterious “sense of ‘us’” might be. This paper states (and argues for) the following five claims: (1) it is neither the case that the sense in question has the community (or “us”) in its content or as its object nor does the attitude in question presuppose a preexistent community (or “us”) as its subject. (2) The “sense of ‘us’” is plural pre-reflective self-awareness. (3) Plural pre-reflective self-awareness plays the same role in the constitution of a common mind that singular pre-reflective self-awareness plays in the individual mind. (4) The most important conceptions of plural subjects, collective persons, or group agents in the current literature fail to recognize the nature and role of plural self-awareness, and therefore fall short in important respects. (5) In spite of the striking similarities between the plural and the singular mind, there are important differences to consider. The authority of the singular first person point of view has no equivalent in the plural case.
It is widely assumed in current philosophical research that groups and corporations cannot have p... more It is widely assumed in current philosophical research that groups and corporations cannot have proper emotions, because they have no consciousness, even if they have intentional attitudes such as beliefs and intentions. This paper argues against this view. If groups are such that they have proper intentional attitudes, they have consciousness, and thus meet an important precondition for having emotions. It is further argued that while there is reason to assume that groups cannot have "fast" emotions, they can have "slow" emotions such as confidence, happiness, or grief. Corporate emotions are plural pre-reflective self-awareness of shared affective concerns.
when people act jointly, their mind is usually on their shared goal rather than on each other. It... more when people act jointly, their mind is usually on their shared goal rather than on each other. It seems clear, however that any intention to participate in a shared intentional activity involves some "background sense" of the other participants as participating, or intending to participate. This paper addresses the question of the nature and kind of the attitude in question. It is argued against a number of received accounts that it is a special kind of interpersonal trust that combines cognitive and normative elements in a particular way. 1 I am grateful to the audiences to which I presented previous versions of this paper, in particular to Herlinde Pauer--Studer,
Trust in one's abilities is an important condition of success. If you believe the words of a rece... more Trust in one's abilities is an important condition of success. If you believe the words of a recent presidential candidate, lack of confidence is the main reasons why we are living such compromised lives in a world stricken by poverty, war, illness and pollution. What's stopping us from doing better is our skepticism about what weindividually as well as collectively -could achieve. It is this negative attitude which lead us to accept us the deal we've gotten so far as good enough for us. In actual fact, the future president suggested, we could get much more out of life, if only we accepted that this is in fact possible. It is time, he argued, to break the bonds of our negative self-image and to choose to pursue the things we have always secretly wanted and accepted as goods worthwhile having, but never really thought to be within our reach. The candidate claimed that there has never been anything wrong about having high ambitions: yes, we can! Yet there is another successful politician's voice, coming from the distant past. As the leader of the March of the Ten Thousand, Xenophon is an expert in achieving unlikely successes by means of motivational speech. But in his memorabilia (book 4, chap. 2, 26), he is far from recommending unlimited confidence. It is of the utmost importance, Xenophon argues, to be realistic about one's abilities -individually as well as collectively -and that includes knowing and accepting one's limits. Exaggerated confidence in one's powers is a clear sign of hubris. A bloated sense of one's abilities will lead agents to engage in futile endeavors. Today's personal trainers tend to argue against fear of failure, as failures may teach important lessons. But Xenophon reminds us that where the stakes are high, failure may mean death and destruction to individuals as well as to communities. Thus in Xenophon's view, a keen sense of the limits of our abilities and a skeptical attitude towards increasing ambitions is far from being an obstacle in the way of getting a better deal; rather, it protects us from harm.
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Papers by Hans Bernhard Schmid
This chapter opens with a discussion of how this works in the individual case (1.), and then proceeds to examining how this carries over to joint action (2.). It is argued that in spite of some important differences between these cases, in order for us to get our joint act together, we need to know what matters to us. For such knowledge to be suitably related to action, it has to involve a single unified evaluative perspective (3.). The way in which this perspective is unified is plural self-knowledge: a non-observational and non-inferential sense of our concerns as ours. Such emotion is a collection’s, or a group’s; its subject is plural rather than singular.
This chapter opens with a discussion of how this works in the individual case (1.), and then proceeds to examining how this carries over to joint action (2.). It is argued that in spite of some important differences between these cases, in order for us to get our joint act together, we need to know what matters to us. For such knowledge to be suitably related to action, it has to involve a single unified evaluative perspective (3.). The way in which this perspective is unified is plural self-knowledge: a non-observational and non-inferential sense of our concerns as ours. Such emotion is a collection’s, or a group’s; its subject is plural rather than singular.
Groups, Norms and Practices provides a template for continuing an interdisciplinary program in philosophy and the sciences that aims to deepen our understanding of human rationality, language use, and sociality.
Current research on social capital tends to focus on an economic reading of social relations. Whereas economists pride themselves on reaching out to social theory at-large, sociologists criticize the economization of the social fabric. The concept of social capital serves as a touchstone for the study of the role of the economy in modern societies. It serves as a breach for expanding the reach of economic categories, yet it also yields the opportunity for questioning and transforming economic premises in the light of social theory and philosophy. Exploring the concept of social capital in the context of related terms like embeddedness, trust, sociability, and cooperation is particularly instructive. This collection of papers from various disciplines (philosophy, sociology, economics, religious studies) combines conceptual studies and empirical findings. It is a plea for re-embedding economic thought in a broader theoretical framework. By exploring the varieties of social identities implied in the theories of social capital, the authors argue for a social (or more sociable) conception of man.