Evolutionarily Primitive Social Entities

TL;DR

This paper explores the primitive nature of social entities in nonhuman animals by analyzing the evolutionary origins of collective intentionality and arguing that social entities are reducible to individual intentions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel argument demonstrating that collective intentions underlying social entities are metaphysically reducible to individual intentions, highlighting their primitive evolutionary status.

Findings

Social entities depend on collective acceptance and recognition.

Collective intentions are metaphysically reducible to individual intentions.

The capacity for collective intentionality is evolutionarily primitive.

Abstract

Social entities only exist in virtue of collective acceptance or recognition, or acknowledgement by two or more individuals in the context of joint activities. Joint activities are made possible by the coordination of plans for action, and the coordination of plans for action is made possible by the capacity for collective intentionality. This paper investigates how primitive is the capacity that nonhuman animals have to create social entities, by individuating how primitive is the capacity for collective intentionality. I present a novel argument for the evolutionary primitiveness of social entities, by showing that the collective intentions upon which these social entities are created and shared are metaphysically reducible to the relevant individual intentions.