Social Ontology and Collective Intentionality – An Interdisciplinary Workshop

Social Ontology as ontological inquiry of social reality – of collectives, practices, laws, material culture and other aspects of reality dependent on sociality including humans themselves and their minds – is a rapidly evolving international field of research. Collective intentionality is one of the key concepts in social ontology in terms of which the basic constitution of all things social is nowadays discussed. It is closely related to themes like mutual belief, joint action and shared emotion. Though many of the central authors in contemporary social ontology are philosophers (including Michael Bratman, Margaret Gilbert, Philip Pettit, John Searle, Raimo Tuomela and others), social ontology also brings together research in many other disciplines, including theoretical sociology, law, economics, cognitive science, psychology, anthropology and political science. The common focus in all these theoretical endeavors is the basic constitution of entities and processes of the social world.

Interest in social ontology is globally shared, and prominently represented in the biannual Collective Intentionality Conferences (https://sites.google.com/site/collintviii/), meetings of the European Network for Social Ontology (http://cipp.unibas.ch/activities/network/) and other such events around the world. The aim of this interdisciplinary workshop is to bring together researchers in social ontology especially in the Australasian region, but contributions from all continents are heartily welcomed.

Program

Day 1. Thursday 3 May

9.15                Registration open
9.45-10.00       Welcome
10.00-11.15     Kirk Ludwig (Indiana), Collective intentions and action: from individual to institutional agency
11.15-11.45     coffee
11.45-12.30     Ian Lee (Toronto), The theorization of corporate personality in corporate law and public law
12.30-1.15       Carlos Bernal-Pulido (Macquarie), The collective intentional creation of legal authority: an analysis of three legal positivistic theories
1.15-2.15         lunch break
2.15-2.45         Mark Bennett (Victoria University, Wellington), ‘It’s a plan’: Does the idea of shared activities explain the normativity of law?
2.45-3.15         James Ley (Sydney), Collective memory and ethical inquiry
3.15-3.45         Monte Pemberton (Queensland), Winch’s internal relations
3.45-4.15         coffee
4.15-5.00         Kristi Giselsson (Tasmania), The social ontological practice of communal accountability: ethics and human value
5.00-5.45         Nikolas Kompridis (Western Sydney), Ontology, receptivity, normativity
Conference Dinner (venue tbc, all welcome, own expense)

Day 2. Friday 4 May

10.00-11.15     Seumas Miller (Charles Sturt), Joint epistemic action
11.15-11.45     coffee
11.45-12.30     Arto Laitinen (Jyväskylä), Collective acceptance without double direction of fit
12.30-1.15       Heikki Ikaheimo (UNSW), Ethical perfectionism in social ontology - a recognition-theoretical view
1.15-2.15                     lunch break
2.15-2.45         Guido Seddone (Leipzig), Emergence of we-intentionality: commitment or belonging?
2.45-3.15         Onni Hirvonen (Macquarie), Group ontologies and recognition theories
3.15-3.45         Kellie Williamson (Macquarie), Towards a social ontology of sports teams
3.45-4.15         coffee
4.15-5.00         Sandra Field (Princeton), Hobbes and the social ontology of power
5.00-5.45         John Sutton (Macquarie), How to share a memory
5.45-6.00         Catriona Mackenzie (Director of CAVE, Macquarie),

Closing remarks

For more information, please contact: Carlos Bernal-Pulido ([email protected])

Registration is free but required by Monday 30th April for catering purposes. Please send your registration details - name and affiliation - to Kellie Williamson: [email protected] saying which day/s you’ll attend.

The workshop is free to attend on both days, with thanks to our sponsors, including morning and afternoon tea and coffee: but lunch is not provided (available at the Macquarie Centre or on campus).

Here is a Macquarie Uni campus map:
http://www.mq.edu.au/pubstatic/custom/files/media/campus_map_jpeg.jpg.
On this map, Robert Menzies college is bottom right, map references U23-V25, across the road from the station. Entry from Herring Road. Here is the Sydney transport infoline for train and bus routes and timetables: http://www.131500.com.au/

Enquiries to the organizers: Carlos Bernal-Pulido (Law, Macquarie, [email protected]), Heikki Ikaheimo (Humanities, UNSW, [email protected]), or John Sutton (Cognitive Science, Macquarie, [email protected]).