Abstract
I first argue against the “psycho-phobia” that has characterized the foundation of the social sciences and invalidates many social policies. I then present a basic ontology of social actions by examining their most important forms, with a special focus on pro-social actions, in particular Goal Delegation and Goal Adoption. These action types are the basic atoms of exchange, cooperation, group action, and organization. The proposed ontology is grounded in the mental representations (beliefs and goals) of the agents involved in social (inter)actions: the individual social mind. I will argue that such an analytical account of social action is needed to provide an adequate conceptual apparatus for social theory. In particular, I will try to show why we need to consider mind-reading and cognitive agents (and therefore, why we have to study the cognitive underpinnings of coordination and social action); why we need to consider agents’ goals about the mind of others in interaction and collaboration, as well to explain group loyality and social commitment to the other; why cognition, communication and agreement are not enough for modeling and implementing cooperation; why emergent pre-cognitive structures and constraints should be formalized; why emergent cooperation is also needed among planning and deliberative social actors; and why also the Nets with their topological structure and dynamics are in fact mind-based.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Although certainly not all: Excluded are pre- and post-behaviorist social psychology, as well as some parts of sociology, economics and political science, particularly those concerned with phenomena such as marketing, propaganda and political demagogy. I am deliberately simplifying matters to bring into sharp relief a problem that is frequently not clearly perceived and whose importance is widely underestimated. Notice that here I will use a restricted notion of “social sciences”, excluding on purpose psychology (at least the ‘general’ and ‘cognitive’ one); the sciences studing the sociological, collective structures, institutions, and behaviors.
- 2.
Note that I am not interested here in the history of ideas; I am only interested in the ideas -- in capturing, using and discussing them. Hence, if Hayek didn’t exactly say or mean what I attribute to him, and just is the current “Vulgate”, this makes no difference to the present argument. What matters to me is the sin, not the sinner.
- 3.
In economics, an explicit treatment of goals has been suppressed by replacing it by a single, implicit goal: utility maximization. Hence, for example, evaluating options or their consequences means appreciating their utilities. But how can the utilities of consequences (apart from the utility of money, which is therefore the ideal good of economists) be determined, if not by relating them to the person’s realized and non-realized goals (desires, needs, projects) and their subjective importance (value)? Likewise, “options” are options only relatively to a given goal. When/if eventually Economics is obliged to come back to psychology, and to accept the need for a psychological foundation of preferences in motives, it identifies psychology (beyond “rational” decision and action that is already and well accounted for by economics) with “subjective experience”, with sensations (with the psychology of the 700 and 800), and search for a simplistic foundation of preferences and motives: pleasure; or more sophisticately and obscurely: happyness (Bruni and Sugden 2007).
- 4.
What an old-fashioned view of psychology this is! Outdated even before the cognitivist revolution! One can understand how this conception of psychology (stemming from the phenomenological and introspective tradition) invites one to accept Behaviorism (like several economists do)—at least behaviors are observable. And in case of a perceived inescapable need for “mental” foundations, it seems better to skip psychology completely and directly connect to the (pseudo)concreteness of brain: neuro-economics, neuro-ethics, neuro-politics, etc.
- 5.
Can we be sure that without the emergent complexity of social phenomena we could make do without sociology, cultural anthropology, political science, etc.? Wouldn’t these sciences still be necessary to understand collective intentional and organized behaviors, or to understand roles, institutional acts, norms, as well as values, trust, groupness, alliances, conflicts?
- 6.
This conceptualization obviously requires a richer cognitive model (architecture) for agents than that assumed in many formal and computational AI and ALife models, an agent architecture closer to those developed in psychology, cognitive science, and in cognitive approaches in economics, sociology and organization studies.
- 7.
“Cognition” and “mind” are clearly not synonyms for “consciousness”. I will ignore the concept of consciousness, which covers on the one hand very different kinds of mental states, and on the other hand describes but a special state (and use) of mental representations.
- 8.
I use “goal” as a general family term for all motivational representations, including desires, intentions, objectives, motives, needs, ambitions, concerns etc. Alternatives are “concerns” (Frijda 1986) or “desire” (Reisenzein 2009; Bratman 1990). However, “desire” – for me - is not a good general term, since (as used in common sense) it does not comprehend duties, obligations, needs, and other types of goal (Castelfranchi 2012a, b).
- 9.
It seems that the less the “individual Self-Sufficiency” (the number of self-realizable goals) is, the more sociality becomes useful as a multiplier of power. (However, the function is complex, because we need agents with high “power of” (capability, resources), and low “Self-Sufficiency”). In other terms, the more the individuals are dependent on each other, the more sociality multiplies their power. This is one of the reasons why division of labor and specialization are so productive.
- 10.
A bilateral dependence relation between to merely selfish guys, with their own personal goal; As definitely characterized by Adam Smith: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages”. This is market and “exchange” in strict sense.
- 11.
This is for us “cooperation” in strict sense (not covering for example mere “exchanges”). We need each other but not for our own independent results (goals) but just for one and the same result, objective (at least at a given layer).
- 12.
I mean that, if we consider X’s act as truly altruistic we are attributing to X a specific motivational asset.
- 13.
“Itaque erras cum interrogas quid sit illud propter quod uirtutem petam; quaeris enim aliquid supra summum. Interrogas quid petam ex uirtute? ipsam. Nihil enim habet melius [enim], ipsa pretium sui. An hoc parum magnum est? Cum tibi dicam ‘summum bonum est infragilis animi rigor et prouidentia et sublimitas et sanitas et libertas et concordia et decor’, aliquid etiamnunc exigis maius ad quod ista referantur? Quid mihi uoluptatem nominas? hominis bonum quaero, non uentris, qui pecudibus ac beluis laxior est.” Seneca, De vita beata, IX (http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/sen/sen.vita.shtml)
[“But,” says our adversary, “you yourself only practise virtue because you hope to obtain some pleasure from it.” In the first place, even though virtue may afford us pleasure, still we do not seek after her on that account: for she does not bestow this, but bestows this to boot, nor is this the end for which she labours, but her labour wins this also, although it be directed to another end. As in a tilled-field, when ploughed for corn, some flowers are found amongst it, and yet, though these posies may charm the eye, all this labour was not spent in order to produce them—the man who sowed the field had another object in view, he gained this over and above it—so pleasure is not the reward or the cause of virtue, but comes in addition to it; nor do we choose virtue because she gives us pleasure, but she gives us pleasure also if we choose her.] (Of a Happy Life, translated by Aubrey Stewart From the Bohns Classical Library Edition of L. Annaeus Seneca, Minor Dialogs Together with the Dialog “On Clemency”; George Bell and Sons, London, 1900).
- 14.
This is the stronger condition. However, we have also broader and weaker cases: Where the expected positive outcome is just “necessary” for my decision but not “sufficient” (I need additional expected outcomes, given for example the costs or the risks); or where the expected positive outcome was “sufficient” for doing that action, but not “necessary”; since I would have done it also for other reasons and effects.
- 15.
Not a simple prediction (a belief about a future state or event) but the combination of a belief about the future and a (convergent or opposite) goal.
- 16.
References
Baron-Cohen, S. 1995. Mindblindness. An essay on autism and theory of mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Batson, C.D. 1991. The altruism question: Towards a social-psychological answer. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Bratman, M.E. 1990. What is intention? In Intentions in communication, ed. P.R. Cohen, J. Morgan, and M.E. Pollack. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bruni, L., and R. Sugden. 2007. The road not taken: How psychology was removed from economics, and how it might be brought back. Economic Journal 117(516): 146–173.
Castelfranchi, C. 1992. No more cooperation please! Controversial points about the social structure of verbal interaction. In AI and cognitive science perspectives on communication, ed. A. Ortony, J. Slack, and O. Stock. Heidelberg: Springer.
Castelfranchi, C. 1995a. Social commitment: From individual intentions to groups and organizations. In ICMAS’95 First International conference on multi-agent systems, 41–49. AAAI-MIT Press.
Castelfranchi, C. 1995b. Guaranties for autonomy in cognitive agent architecture. In Intelligent agents I, ed. M.J. Woolridge and N.R. Jennings. Berlin: Springer.
Castelfranchi, C. 1997. Principles of individual social action. In Contemporary action theory, ed. R. Tuomela and G. Hintikka. Norwell: Kluwer.
Castelfranchi, C. 2000. Through the agents’ minds: Cognitive mediators of social action. Mind and Society 2000: 109–140.
Castelfranchi, C. 2001. The theory of social functions. Challenges for multi-agent-based social simulation and multi-agent learning. Journal of Cognitive Systems Research 2: 5–38. Elsevier. http://www.cogsci.rpi.edu/~rsun/si-mal/article1.pdf
Castelfranchi, C. 2003a. The micro-macro constitution of power, Protosociology. An International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research. Double Vol. 18–19. In Understanding the social II – Philosophy of sociality, ed. Raimo Tuomela, Gerhard Preyer, and Georg Peter.
Castelfranchi, C. 2003b. Grounding we-intentions in individual social attitudes. In Realism in action – Essays in the philosophy of social sciences, ed. Matti Sintonen, Petri Ylikoski, and Kaarlo Miller. Dordrecht: Kluwer Publisher.
Castelfranchi, C. 2003c. For a “Cognitive Program”: Explicit mental representations for Homo Oeconomicus. In Cognitive processes and economic behavior, ed. Nicola Dimitri, Marcello Basili, and Itzhak Gilboa. London: Routledge.
Castelfranchi, C. 2011. The “Logic” of power. Hints on how my power becomes his power. SNAMAS-AISB’11, 3–9.
Castelfranchi, C. 2012a. Ascribing minds. Cognitive processing. Springer.
Castelfranchi, C. 2012b. Goals, the true center of cognition. In The goals of cognition, ed. F. Paglieri, L. Tummolini, R. Falcone, and M. Miceli. London: College Publications.
Castelfranchi, C., and R. Conte. 1992. Emergent functionality among intelligent systems: Cooperation within and without minds. AI & Society 6: 78–93.
Castelfranchi, C., and R. Falcone. 1997. Delegation conflicts. In Proceedings of MAAMAW, ed. M. Boman, and W. van De Welde. Springer-Verlag.
Castelfranchi, C., and F. Paglieri. 2007. The role of beliefs in goal dynamics: Prolegomena to a constructive theory of intentions. Synthese 155: 237–263.
Castelfranchi, C., M. Miceli, and A. Cesta. 1992. Dependence relations among autonomous agents. In Decentralized A.I. – 3, ed. Y. Demazeau and E. Werner. North Holland: Elsevier.
Conte, R., and C. Castelfranchi. 1995. Cognitive and social action. London: UCL Press.
Conte, R., and C. Castelfranchi. 1996. Mind is not enough. Precognitive bases of social interaction. In Proceedings of the 1992 symposium on simulating societies, ed. N. Gilbert. London: University College of London Press.
Dennet, D.C. 1981. Brainstorms. New York: Harvest Press.
Elster, J. 1982. Marxism, functionalism and game-theory: The case for methodological individualism. Theory and Society 11: 453–481.
Falcone, R., and C. Castelfranchi. 1997. “On behalf of …”: Levels of help, levels of delegation and their conflicts, 4th ModelAge workshop: “Formal Model of Agents”, Certosa di Pontignano, Siena.
Frijda, N.H. 1986. The emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Garfinkel, H. 1963. A conception of, and experiments with, ‘trust’ as a condition of stable concerted actions. In Motivation and social interaction, ed. O.J. Harvey, 187–238. New York: The Ronald Press.
Grosz, B., and S. Kraus. 1996. Collaborative plans for complex group action. Artificial Intelligence 86: 269–357.
Hogg, T., and B.A. Huberman. 1992. Better than the best: The power of cooperation – Lectures notes in complex systems. Reading: Addison-Wesley.
Levesque, H.J., P.R. Cohen, and J.H.T. Nunes. 1990. On acting together. In Proceedings of the 8th national conference on artificial intelligence, 94–100. San Marco: Kaufmann.
Lewin, K. 1935. A dynamic theory of personality: Selected papers by Kurt Lewin. New York/London: McGraw-Hill.
Lorini, E., F. Marzo, and Castelfranchi. 2005. A cognitive model of the altruistic mind. International conference on Cognitive Economics, Sofia.
Lorini, E., A. Herzig, and C. Castelfranchi. 2006. Introducing Attempt in a modal logic of intentional action. JELIA 2006: 280–292.
Lorini, E., N. Troquard, A. Herzig, and C. Castelfranchi. 2007. Delegation and mental states. AAMAS 153.
Mataric, M. 1992. Designing emergent behaviors: From local interactions to collective intelligence. In Simulation of adaptive behavior, vol. 2. Cambridge: MIT Press.
McFarland, D. 1983. Intentions as goals, open commentary to Dennet, D.C. Intentional systems in cognitive ethology: the “Panglossian paradigm” defended. The Behavioural and Brain Sciences 6: 343–390.
Miller, G., E. Galanter, and K.H. Pribram. 1960. Plans and the structure of behavior. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Pörn, I. 1989. On the nature of a social order. In Logic, methodology and philosophy of science, ed. J.E. Festand et al., 553–567. North-Holland: Elsevier.
Rao, A.S., M.P. Georgeff, and E.A. Sonenberg. 1992. Social plans: A preliminary report. In Decentralized A. I. 3, ed. E. Werner and Y. Demazeau. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Reisenzein, R. 2009. Emotions as metarepresentational states of mind: Naturalizing the belief-desire theory of emotion. Cognitive Systems Research 10: 6–20.
Rosenblueth, A., and N. Wiener. 1968. Purposeful and non-purposeful behavior. In Modern systems research for the behavioral scientist, ed. W. Buckley. Chicago: Aldine.
Searle, J. 1990. Collective intentions and actions. In Intentions in communication, ed. P. Cohen, J. Morgan, and M.E. Pollack. Cambridge, MA: Bradford Books, MIT Press.
Sichman, J.S., R. Conte, C. Castelfranchi, and Y. Demazeau. 1998. A social reasoning mechanism based on dependence networks. In Readings in agents, ed. M. Hunhs and M. Singh, 416–421. S. Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann.
Sober, E., and D.S. Wilson. 1998. Unto others: The evolution and psychology of unselfish behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Steels, L. 1990. Cooperation between distributed agents through self-organization. In Decentralized AI, ed. Y. Demazeau and J.P. Mueller. North-Holland: Elsevier.
Tummolini, L. 2010. Varieties of joint action. A theoretical exploration in the cognitive foundations of social structures. PhD Thesis, University of Siena.
Tummolini, L., and C. Castelfranchi. 2006. The cognitive and behavioral mediation of institutions: Towards an account of institutional actions. Cognitive Systems Research 7(2–3): 307–323.
Tuomela, R. 1993. What is cooperation. Erkenntnis 38: 87–101.
Tuomela, R., and K. Miller. 1988. We-intentions. Philosophical Studies 53: 115–137.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the members of our research group GOAL http://www.istc.cnr.it/group/goal. I’m in debt with them, which were repeatedly working and discussing with me on these issues. I also want to thank Rainer Reisenzein for his precious revision, comments and criticisms that obliged me to better understand and to make several points more clearly.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Castelfranchi, C. (2015). Healing Social Sciences’ Psycho-phobia: Founding Social Action and Structure on Mental Representations. In: Herzig, A., Lorini, E. (eds) The Cognitive Foundations of Group Attitudes and Social Interaction. Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality, vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21732-1_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21732-1_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-21731-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-21732-1
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)