The We-Mode Approach: A Response to John Wettersten’s Review of The Philosophy of Sociality: The Shared Point of View

Abstract

The paper is a response to some critical points and omissions in John Wettersten’s review of my recent book The Philosophy of Sociality: The Shared Point of View (Oxford University Press, 2007). I point out in this short paper that the reviewer has not discussed the most central notions in the book relating to its “we-mode” approach, i.e. collective acceptance, group reasons, the collectivity condition, collective commitment and their role in accounting for e.g. cooperation, social institutions, cultural evolution. I also clarify the ontological commitments of my broadly naturalistic approach and show e.g. that we-mode social groups do exist as social systems but not a full-blown collective agents, although it is conceptually and instrumentally central to view them as collective agents. Also questions of we-mode versus I-mode explanations of collective action are considered in the paper.