Abstract
Whether collective agency is a coherent concept depends on the theory of agency that we choose to adopt. We argue that the enactive theory of agency developed by Barandiaran, Di Paolo and Rohde (2009) provides a principled way of grounding agency in biological organisms. However the importance of biological embodiment for the enactive approach might lead one to be skeptical as to whether artificial systems or collectives of individuals could instantiate genuine agency. To explore this issue we contrast the concept of collective agency with multi-agent systems and multi-system agents, and argue that genuinely collective agents instantiate agency at both the collective level and at the level of the component parts. Developing the enactive model, we propose understanding agency – both at the level of the individual and of the collective – as spectra that are constituted by dimensions that vary across time. Finally, we consider whether collectives that are not merely metaphorically ‘agents’ but rather are genuinely agentive also instantiate subjectivity at the collective level. We propose that investigations using the perceptual crossing paradigm suggest that a shared lived perspective can indeed emerge but this should not be conflated with a collective first-person perspective, for which material integration in a living body may be required.
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Notes
- 1.
Note that the term “enactivism” has recently come to be used in several ways. Here we use it to refer to the paradigm heavily influenced by Maturana and Varela (1987) and formally instigated with the introduction of the term in Varela et al. (1991). This has been described as “autopoietic enactivism” by Hutto in order to distinguish it from his theory which he calls “radical enactivism” (Hutto and Myin 2013) and from sensorimotor enactivism (Noë 2004). While it is useful to distinguish these streams of research, the term “autopoietic enactivism” is somewhat misleading as although the theory of autopoiesis has been a strong inspiration for researchers in this paradigm, not all accept that autopoiesis is necessary and/or sufficient for cognition (for this debate see Froese and Di Paolo 2011; and the discussions in Thompson 2011; Wheeler 2011). It is therefore perhaps better to refer to it as “biological enactivism” in order to distinguish it from the other streams. For the purpose of this paper we do not draw on these other streams and will use the term “enactivism” as it was originally introduced and as it continues to be used by the main propagators of this approach (Varela et al. 1991; Thompson 2007; Di Paolo 2005; 2009a; Di Paolo and Thompson 2014).
- 2.
The term “deep embodiment” is taken from Ezequiel Di Paolo’s (2009) ShanghAI Lecture available at http://shanghailectures.org/guest-lectures/43-presenter/177-ezequiel-di-paolo. It refers to the fact that embodiment is taken as ontologically essential for mind, rather than as just a contingent functional extension of mind that could be separated from it, like a tool.
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Stapleton, M., Froese, T. (2015). Is Collective Agency a Coherent Idea? Considerations from the Enactive Theory of Agency. In: Misselhorn, C. (eds) Collective Agency and Cooperation in Natural and Artificial Systems. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 122. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15515-9_12
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