Ontology problem. Can "interinstitutionality" (by analogy to "intersubjectivity") be considered the same as "public"?
-
-
There was a debate of this sort around intentionality in multiagent systems a couple of decades ago. The basic problem was whether groups/teams can have intentions at all, or whether only individuals can, and group intention is really a set of supporting individual intentions
Show this thread -
The two "solutions" to problem ontologically, are to posit an idea of "Joint Intention" (as in, "China wants a trade war") where you attribute intentionality to collective, or "Intend that" as side intentionality to "intend to" (as in "Most Chinese citizens support a trade war")
Show this thread -
So to frame latter formally, if I were Chinese, I might "intend to" certain things (live my life, buy a cookie), and "intend that" certain other things happen via collective agency (China wins trade war etc). The difference is that latter strategy avoids reifying the collective.
Show this thread -
Now apply that strategy to subjectivity and intersubjectivity. Community behaviors become "intend that" behaviors expressed through Gemeinschaft modes.
Show this thread -
Contrast: "Californians believe in climate change and renewables" (intersubjectivity as communal subjectivity) "The average Californian wants renewable power and supports neighbors who do" (avoid reifying the collective "community")
Show this thread -
The ontological question is whether the linguistic reduction of a reified construction to a non-reified one loses something. This is quite hard to analyze. In general, the answer is that it does (apply a Ship of Theseus type replacement of elements argument to the collective).
Show this thread -
Now to the original question, the "public" is generally understood as some sort of aggregated mass of humans outside of a specific institutional context. They are being extra-institutionally human. Not even citizens (that's an institutional role involved in voting for example)
Show this thread -
So to ask if "public" can be reduced to "inter-institutionality" is to ask if so-called public behaviors are in fact reducible to a union of institutional behaviors. Ie explainable by combining all institutional roles (worker, citizen, neighborhood dweller, family person)
Show this thread -
The strongest counterargument I've heard is Corey Robin's idea that publics are created by intellectuals. They are effectively "audiences for specific arguments/narratives/discourses". But this has the weakness of being too partial a characterization
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.