Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality 4 Mattia Gallotti John Michael Editors Perspectives on Social Ontology and Social Cognition Perspectives on Social Ontology and Social Cognition Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality Volume 4 Editor-in-Chief Raimo Tuomela (Prof. Emer., University of Helsinki, University of Munich) Managing Editors Hans Bernhard Schmid (Prof., University of Basel) Jennifer Hudin (Lecturer, University of California, USA) Advisory Board Robert Audi, Notre Dame University (Philosophy) Michael Bratman, Stanford University (Philosophy) Cristiano Castelfranchi, University of Siena (Cognitive Science) David Copp, University of California at Davis (Philosophy) Ann Cudd, University of Kentucky (Philosophy) John Davis, Marquette University and University of Amsterdam (Economics) Wolfgang Detel, University of Frankfurt (Philosophy) Andreas Herzig, University of Toulouse (Computer Science) Ingvar Johansson, Umeå University (Philosophy) Byron Kaldis, University of Athens (Philosophy) Martin Kusch, University of Vienna (Philosophy) Christopher Kutz, University of California at Berkeley (Law) Eerik Lagerspetz, University of Turku (Philosophy) Pierre Livet, Universite de Provence Tony Lawson, University of Cambridge (Economics) Kirk Ludwig, University of Florida (Philosophy) Uskali Mäki, Academy of Finland (Philosophy) Kay Mathiesen, University of Arizona (Information Science and Philosophy) Larry May, Vanderbilt University (Philosophy and Law) Georg Meggle, University of Leipzig (Philosophy) Anthonie Meijers, University of Eindhoven (Philosophy) Seumas Miller, Australian National University and Charles Sturt University (Philosophy) Elisabeth Pacherie, Jean Nicod Institute, Paris (Cognitive Science) Henry Richardson, Georgetown University (Philosophy) Michael Quante, University of Münster (Philosophy) John Searle (Philosophy, University of California at Berkeley) Michael Tomasello (Developmental Psychology, Max Planck Institute, Leipzig) For further volumes: http://www.springer.com/series/10961 Mattia Gallotti • John Michael Editors Perspectives on Social Ontology and Social Cognition Editors Mattia Gallotti John Michael School of Advanced Study Central European University University of London Budapest , Hungary London , United Kingdom ISBN 978-94-017-9146-5 ISBN 978-94-017-9147-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-9147-2 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg New York London Library of Congress Control Number: 2014942846 © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014 This work is subject to copyright. 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Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) Preface and Ac knowledgements Perspectives on Social Ontology and Social Cognition brings together contributions from researchers with a highly diverse range of disciplinary back- grounds – from philosophy to anthropology, economics, psychology, neurosci- ence and linguistics. Although the concepts and the methods that shape their contributions differ greatly, one thing that they all share in common is that they have been inspired in one way or another (indeed, in many ways) by John Searle’s pioneering and foundational work in the philosophy of language and mind and, more recently, society. In order to provide a rich and varied source of ideas, argu- ments and empirical material for people interested in social ontology and social cognition, the editorial board and guest editors have placed great weight upon the inclusion of a diverse range of views from heterogeneous perspectives – in some cases even views with which they themselves would not agree. If, as a result, the reader should fi nd some arguments or some formulations controversial, either in tone or in substance, the editors request that she bear this in mind and interpret it as a testimony to the broad and engaged interest that John Searle’s work contin- ues to generate. The project of editing a collection of essays on some of the most pressing and fascinating questions in current research on social ontology and social cognition started to take shape at the Interacting Minds Centre at the University of Aarhus in Summer 2011. Some of the essays included in this volume were fi rst presented in the context of Objects in Mind , the fi rst Aarhus-Paris conference on social ontol- ogy and social cognition, which was held at the Centre of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience at the University of Aarhus on June 25–26, 2012. We owe a special debt to the Interacting Minds Centre at Aarhus and to the European ORA Project “NESSHI” (the Neuro-turn in European Social Sciences and Humanities: Impact of neuroscience on economics, marketing and philosophy) for providing us with generous support to organize the event. We particularly want to thank Sacha Bourgeois- Gironde and Andreas Roepstorff for their inspiration and their gener- ous support. We would also like to express our gratitude to a number of friends and colleagues who agreed to act as anonymous referees in reviewing contributions to the volume. v vi Preface and Acknowledgements To Raimo Tuomela we owe a particular debt. In his capacity as the Editor-in-Chief of the Springer book-series Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality , Raimo oversaw a rigorous and constructive review process and offered valuable advice and guidance throughout the editorial ‘journey’. Contents 1 Objects in Mind ......................................................................................... 1 Mattia Gallotti and John Michael Part I Perspectives on Social Ontology 2 Are There Social Objects? ....................................................................... 17 John R. Searle 3 Deflating Socially Constructed Objects: What Thoughts Do to the World .............................................. 27 Ruth Garrett Millikan 4 How Many Kinds of Glue Hold the Social World Together? ............... 41 Brian Epstein 5 On the Nature of Social Kinds ................................................................. 57 Francesco Guala 6 Normativity of the Background: A Contextualist Account of Social Facts ............................................................................ 69 Enrico Terrone and Daniela Tagliafi co 7 Social Ontology and the Objection from Reification ............................ 87 Edouard Machery Part II Perspectives on Social Cognition 8 Constraints on Joint Action ..................................................................... 103 Cédric Paternotte 9 How Objects Become Social in the Brain: Five Questions for a Neuroscience of Social Reality ........................................................ 125 Cristina Becchio and Cesare Bertone vii viii Contents 10 Materializing Mind: The Role of Objects in Cognition and Culture ....................................................................... 135 Kristian Tylén and John J. McGraw 11 Perceiving Affordances and Social Cognition ...................................... 149 Anika Fiebich 12 Social Cognition as Causal Inference: Implications for Common Knowledge and Autism ................................................... 167 Jakob Hohwy and Colin Palmer Chapter 1 Objects in Mind Mattia Gallotti and John Michael Abstract In this editorial introduction, we provide some background to the discussions in social ontology and social cognition which form the context for the papers collected together in this volume. In doing so, we also briefl y sketch how the individual contributions fi t together within this broader context. When we cast a philosophical glance upon the social world around us, one thing that is likely to jump out at us is that so many of the entities that we deal with and depend upon depend, in turn, upon us. Parliamentary commissions, computers, and works of art, in contrast to bacteria, minerals, and plants, are entities which would not exist without us. This is not to deny that such entities are materially