CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020
| Author | Davis, Tertia |
|---|---|
| Title | Extended Minds, Collective Minds, and Group Agents |
| Summary | We often speak of groups as if they are agents or minds in their own right. I do not think this is purely metaphorical, and that sometimes we pick out a distinct group agent that is capable of intentions, actions, thoughts, beliefs, desires, and other mental states that do not reduce to the aggregate mental states of the individual human beings that compose the group. In this thesis I make an argument for a robust, realist conception of the group agent based upon the Hypothesis of Extended Mind (HEM). Using a central principle of this theory, I claim that the mind extends, not only into the physical environment, but socially as well. This socially extended mind provides the basis of group mental states, which function similarly to those of individual human minds, specifically as distributed cognitive systems. I then address the primary objection to this argument, which is that the robust group agent entails an impossible group mind. But instead of rejecting the conclusion that a strong conception of the group agent implies a potentially conscious group or collective mind, I argue that this is not necessarily an unreasonable or undesirable outcome. |
| Supervisor | Rippon, Simon |
| Department | Philosophy MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2020/davis_tertia.pdf |
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