New paper by Dr. Samuel Mortimer published in Mind
We are delighted to announce that Dr. Samuel Mortimer—Research Fellow at the Kyoto Institute of Philosophy (KIP), Intesa Sanpaolo Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, and Senior Lecturer at the Graduate School of Management, Kyoto University—, has published his article “What’s Special About Collective Action?” in Mind, one of the world’s leading philosophy journals. In this paper, Dr. Mortimer challenges a long-standing assumption in contemporary philosophy of action: that acting together must depend on distinctive forms of shared or collective intention. Philosophers have long argued that collective actions—such as playing in an orchestra or walking together—require special kinds of mental states that go beyond the individual.
Details
Dr. Mortimer proposes a strikingly different, “deflationary” view. He argues that the difference between acting alone and acting together lies not in the mind, but in the way people behave. Just as one can play a melody loudly or softly, one can perform an action solitarily or groupily. What makes an orchestra’s performance collective, he suggests, is not a mysterious ‘we-intention’, but the different parts the musicians play and the particular ways each one responds and adapts to the others.
By showing that collective action can be understood in behavioral terms, Dr. Mortimer’s account dispenses with the need for any “special” collective intentions or group minds. It has far-reaching implications for debates about group agency, suggesting that we can explain what groups do without positing group agents at all. Most importantly, it suggests that there is no deep, fundamental difference between doing things individually and doing them with others. Dr. Mortimer’s research shows that individual action is no more metaphysically basic than collective action, rejecting the individualistic bias that has motivated decades of action theory.
The publication of this paper in Mind marks a significant recognition of Dr. Mortimer’s contribution to contemporary social philosophy and action theory. It situates his work at the forefront of efforts to bridge analytic philosophy, behavioral science, and social ontology—fields seeking to clarify how human cooperation and shared practices emerge from the web of everyday activity.
Others
Collaboration with Portuguese academic institutions: Building a foundation for network development — Prof. Deguchi, Prof. Gabriel visit three cities
2025.12.23
Special issue of Open Philosophy dedicated to Professor Deguchi’s WE-turn published
2025.12.17