Title: The common mind :
Authors: Pettit, Philip,
Date: 1996
Publisher: Oxford University Press,
Physical description: xvi, 381 pages ; 24 cm
Language: English
LC classification: B
Abstract: "What makes human beings intentional and thinking subjects? How does their intentionality and thought connect with their social nature and their communal experience? How do the answers to these questions shape the assumptions which it is legitimate to make in social explanation and political evaluation? These are the broad-ranging issues which Pettit addresses in this innovative study. The Common Mind argues for an original way of distinguishing thinking subjects, in particular human beings, from other intentional systems, natural and artificial. It defends the holistic view that human thought requires communal resources while denying that this social connection compromises the autonomy of individuals. And, in developing the significance of this view of social subjects -- this holistic individualism -- it outlines a novel framework for social and political theory. Book jacket."--BOOK JACKET.
Contents: Mind -- Intentionality -- Intentional Agents -- Intentional States -- Thought -- The First Requirement: Intentional Ascent -- The Second Requirement: Rule-Following -- Mind And Society -- For Individualism, against Collectivism -- Do Structural Regularities Override Intentional? -- Do Structural Regularities Outflank Intentional? -- For Holism, against Atomism -- The Argument for Holism -- Holism and Relativism -- Mind, Society, And Theory -- Social Theory -- Intentional Interpretation -- Structural and Historicist Theory -- Rational Choice Theory -- Political Theory -- Contract-Centred Thought -- Value-Centred Thought -- Institution-Centred Thought -- Postscript: A Common Mind in Three Senses.
Notes: Originally published: New York : Oxford University Press, 1993. With a new postscript.
Subject headings (LCSH): Intentionality (Philosophy); Intentionality (Philosophy)--Social aspects.; Political science--Philosophy.; Social psychology--Philosophy.