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2015 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

1. The Cognition of Conflict: Ontology, Dynamics, and Ideology

Author : Cristiano Castelfranchi

Published in: Conflict and Multimodal Communication

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

What is the relationship between actors’ mental representations (e.g., beliefs, goals) and the conflicts between them? And what is the relation (if any) between individual/subjective conflicts (among my goals) and social conflicts? How does one build a systematic ontology of conflicts taking into account objective and subjective types, the internal or individual and the external or social? Do external conflicts require internalized/mentalized conflicts? Are there objective conflicts that agents are unaware of? How do they work? What is the relation between contradictions and conflicts and the need for mental coherence?
With regard to prejudice against conflicts, does human society reflect “social cohesion,” “solidarity,” or cooperation (Durkheim)? Or “Bellum omnium contra omnes” (Hobbes)? Why are they necessarily expressions of the same ground. Why are conflicts (social and mental) good and useful and not something negative, and why do they represent the real condition for democracy?

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next chapter Group Conflict as Social Contradiction
Footnotes
1
A preliminary version of such an ontology can be found in Castelfranchi (1996).
 
2
There is an even broader and a rather metaphoric notion in common usage, where “conflict” simply means any incompatibility between A and B in the same given context, for whatever reason. They are “in contrast” (objectively or subjectively: from the point of view of the perceiver); they cannot remain together; one tends to rule out the other, even from a simple aesthetic or perceptual point of view (like clashing colors or sounds, or like a light in front of me, and my goal of looking in a certain direction. To use the metaphor of conflict, what is needed is to look at the word (even physical force) from the perspective of “finalities.”
 
3
See “dual system” or “processing” theories by Evans; Kahneman; Sloman; Stanovich and others. For a review, see Evans (2008).
 
4
While “contrary to Y’s best interest” means that P creates an obstacle or frustrates Y’s goals.
 
5
It might be interesting to note in passing that internal conflicts also apply to abstract agents like, for example, groups, organizations, or states in which conflicts among members can implement/generate an internal conflict at the level of the abstract agent. If there is an internal conflict in an abstract agent, there should be either an internal conflict in at least one of its members or an interagent conflict among some of its members.
 
6
And after we have invested in that perspective, we increase the value of the goal [see sunk costs effects in, for example, Arkes and Ayton (1999)] to make it more stable.
 
7
This can also hold at the individual level: a conflict between the goal of X that P and action A1 for P, and another goal and action of X: A2. It may be that if X performs A1 before A2, A2 cannot be successful; the plan is wrong. But if X performs A2 before A1, there is no problem; they are in the right order. The conflict is due to the temporal order (conflict in planning).
 
8
For a criticism of this thesis see:
 
9
Thus, perhaps bellum omnium contra omnes is not really synonymous with homo homini lupus.
 
10
It seems that the less the level of individual self-sufficiency (the number of self-realizable goals out of the number of needs) the more sociality is useful and can multiply powers. (But the function is complex because we need agents with a high “power of” – skills, resources – and low “self-sufficiency”). In other words, the more individuals are dependent on each other, the more sociality multiplies their power. This is one reason why division of labor and specialization are so productive.
 
11
The disadvantage is that I can no longer harm others or pursue my selfish interests and desires without caring about others without, for example, valuing their needs or without feeling guilty.
 
Literature
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Castelfranchi C, Paglieri F (2007) The role of beliefs in goal dynamics: prolegomena to a constructive theory of intentions. Synthese 155(2):237–263CrossRefMathSciNet
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Metadata
Title
The Cognition of Conflict: Ontology, Dynamics, and Ideology
Author
Cristiano Castelfranchi
Copyright Year
2015
Book
Conflict and Multimodal Communication

Print ISBN: 978-3-319-14080-3

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-14081-0

Copyright Year: 2015

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14081-0_1

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