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Group-Level Cognition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Robert A. Wilson
Robert A. Wilson*
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
*
†Send requests for reprints to the author, Department of Philosophy, 4–115 Humanities Centre, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E5, Canada; email: [email protected].
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Abstract

David Sloan Wilson has recently revived the idea of a group mind as an application of group selectionist thinking to cognition. Central to my discussion of this idea is the distinction between the claim that groups have a psychology and what I call the social manifestation thesis—a thesis about the psychology of individuals. Contemporary work on this topic has confused these two theses. My discussion also points to research questions and issues that Wilson's work raises, as well as their connection to externalist conceptions of the mind familiar since the work of Putnam and Burge.

Type
Philosophy of Biology and Cognition
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 68 , Issue S3: No. 3 Supplement: Proceedings of the 2000 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers Sep., 2001 , 2001 , pp. S262 - S273
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 2001

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