Group-Level Cognition

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Wilson, Robert A.

• David Sloan Wilson has recently revived the idea of a group mind as an application of group selectionist thinking to cognition. Central to my discussion of this idea is the distinction between the claim that groups have a psychology and what I call the social manifestation thesis-a thesis about the psychology of individuals. Contemporary work on this topic has confused these two theses. My discussion also points to research questions and issues that Wilson's work raises, as well as their connection to externalist conceptions of the mind familiar since the work of Putnam and Burge.

• Date created

  2001

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Mind
  • Psychology
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Social Psychology
  • Evolutionary Psychology
  • Psychological Symptoms
  • Group Mind
  • Biological Adaptation
  • Group Selection
  • Cognition

• Type of Item

  Article (Published)

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3154F37H

• License

  © 2001 Philosophy of Science Association. All rights reserved.