Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T23:04:05.172Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How Individuals Constitute Group Agents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2019

Keith Harris Open the ORCID record for Keith Harris [Opens in a new window]
Keith Harris*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Several social metaphysicians have argued that groups are constituted by, but not identical to, their members. While the constitution view is promising, there are significant difficulties with existing versions of that view. Fortunately, lessons may be extracted from more traditional metaphysics and applied to the case of group agents. Drawing on such lessons, I present a novel account of the constitution relation holding between individuals and group agents. According to the resulting structural-constitution view, when individuals constitute a group of a certain kind, they do so in virtue of exhibiting the structure characteristic of groups of that kind.

Keywords

Constitutiongrounding problemgroup agentshylomorphismsocial ontology
Type
Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , April 2020 , pp. 350 - 364
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Canadian Journal of Philosophy

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baker, L. R. 1999. “Unity without Identity: A New Look at Material Constitution.” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 23 (1): 144–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baker, L. R. 2000. Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, R. T. 2013. “Impure Sets Are Not Located: A Fregean Argument.” Thought 1 (3): 219–29.Google Scholar
deRosset, L. 2011. “What Is the Grounding Problem?” Philosophical Studies 156 (2): 173–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Effingham, N. 2010. “The Metaphysics of Groups.” Philosophical Studies 149 (2): 251–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, B. 2015. The Ant Trap. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, K. 1999. “Things and Their Parts.” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 23 (1): 61–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, K. 2000. “A Counterexample to Locke’s Thesis.” The Monist 83 (3): 357–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, K. 2008. “Coincidence and Form.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplemental Vols. 82 (1): 101–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibbard, A. 1975. “Contingent Identity.” Journal of Philosophical Logic 4 (2): 187–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert, M. 1987. “Modelling Collective Belief.” Synthese 73 (1): 185–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawley, K. 2017. “Social Mereology.” Journal of the American Philosophical Association 3 (4): 395–411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hindriks, F. 2013. “The Location Problem in Social Ontology.” Synthese 190 (3): 413–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jansen, L. 2009. “Unity and Constitution of Social Entities.” In Unity and Time in Metaphysics, edited by Honnefelder, L., Runggaldier, E., and Schick, B., 15–45. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Koslicki, K. 2008. The Structure of Objects. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
List, C., and Pettit, P.. 2011. Group Agency: The Possibility, Design, and Status of Corporate Agents. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ritchie, K. 2013. “What Are Groups?” Philosophical Studies 166 (2): 257–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ritchie, K. 2015. The Metaphysics of Social Groups.” Philosophy Compass 10 (5): 310–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ritchie, K. 2019. “Social Structures and the Ontology of Social Groups.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. doi: 10.1111/phpr.12555.Google Scholar
Ruben, D. H. 1983. “Social Wholes and Parts.” Mind 92 (366): 219–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruben, D. H. 1985. The Metaphysics of the Social World. London: Routledge Kegan & Paul.Google Scholar
Schmitt, F. 2003. “Socializing Metaphysics: An Introduction.” In Socializing Metaphysics, edited by Schmitt, F., 1–37. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Thomson, J. J. 1998. “The Statue and the Clay.” Noûs 32(2): 149–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tuomela, R. 2013. Social Ontology: Collective Intentionality and Group Agents. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uzquiano, G. 2004. “The Supreme Court and the Supreme Court Justices: A Metaphysical Puzzle.” Noûs 38 (1): 135–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uzquiano, G. 2018. “Groups: Toward a Theory of Plural Embodiment.” Journal of Philosophy 115 (8): 423–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, R. A. 2005. “Persons, Social Agency, and Constitution.” Social Philosophy and Policy 22 (2): 49–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, R. A. 2007. “A Puzzle about Material Constitution and How to Solve It: Enriching Constitution Views in Metaphysics.” Philosophers’ Imprint 7 (5): 1–20.Google Scholar
Wilson, R. A. 2008. “Material Constitution and the Many-Many Problem.” The Canadian Journal of Philosophy. 38 (2): 201–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, R. A. 2009. “The Transitivity of Material Constitution.” Noûs 43 (2): 363–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zimmerman, D. W. 1995. “Theories of Masses and Problems of Constitution.” The Philosophical Review 104: 53–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zimmerman, D. W. 2002. “Persons and Bodies: Constitution without Mereology.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64 (3): 599–606.CrossRefGoogle Scholar