From extended mind to collective mind Action editors: Luca Tummolini and Cristiano Castelfranchi Deborah Perron Tollefsen * Department of Philosophy, University of Memphis, 327 Clement Hall, Memphis, TN 38152, USA Received 30 March 2005; accepted 7 November 2005 Available online 28 February 2006 Abstract Although the notion of collective intentionality has received considerable attention over the past decade, accounts of collective belief and intention remain individualistic. Most accounts analyze group intentional states in terms of a complex set of individual intentional states and, thus, it is individuals not groups that have intentional states. In this paper, I attempt to undermine one of the motivations for refusing to acknowledge groups as the bearers of mental states. The resistance to collective mental states is motivated by the view that mental states are located in minds and minds are in heads. Since groups do not have heads or brains, they cannot have minds or mental states. There is a significant and important thesis in cognitive science, however, which suggests that the mind is not bounded by skin and bones. If ‘‘the mind ain’t in the head’’, then this removes a major barrier to the idea of collective minds. Ó 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Extended mind; Collective mind; Collective intentionality 1. Introduction Until recently, ‘‘collective intentionality’’ was a phrase that raised skeptical eyebrows in many circles. A growing number of philosophers and researchers in the social and cognitive sciences, however, have begun to take the idea of collective intentionality very seriously. Despite the grow- ing interest, standard accounts of collective intentional states preserve a form of individualism. Collective beliefs and intentions on these accounts are not the mental states of some group agent but are to be identified with a complex set of individual intentional states. 1 In this paper, I attempt to undermine one of the motiva- tions for refusing to acknowledge groups as the bearers of mental states. The resistance to collective mental states is motivated by the view that mental states are located in minds and minds are located in heads. Since groups do not have heads or brains, they cannot have mental states. There is a significant and important thesis in cognitive sci- ence, however, which suggests that the mind is not bounded by skin and bones. If ‘‘the mind ain’t in the head’’, 2 then this removes a major barrier preventing acceptance of the idea that groups are the bearers of mental states. Having removed one of the major theoretical objec- tions to the idea of collective minds, I take up the prag- matic issue of the explanatory power of the collective mind hypothesis. In Section 2, I focus on the work of Andy Clark and David Chalmers. Although there have been a variety of recent attempts to stretch the boundaries of the mind, Clark and Chalmers (henceforth, C and C) provide the 1389-0417/$ - see front matter Ó 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.cogsys.2006.01.001 * Tel.: +1 901 678 4689; fax: +1 901 678 4365. E-mail address: dtollfsn@memphis.edu. 1 For instance, see Bratman (1993) and Tuomela (1992). Searle (1990, 1995) also preserves a form of individualism by claiming that we- intentions and we-beliefs are individual mental states. It is less clear that Gilbert (2002, 2003) is committed to this form of individualism. Plural subjects are the appropriate target of attitude ascription. At times, however, she suggests that the beliefs of a group are only analogous to the beliefs of individuals. This suggests that she does not view groups as literally having beliefs. 2 The phrase appears in McDowell (1992) and is a variation on Putnam’s ‘‘meaning ain’t in the head’’ found in (1975). www.elsevier.com/locate/cogsys Cognitive Systems Research 7 (2006) 140–150