Collective Goals and Communicative Action

Put in a nutshell, the following view of the nature of communicative action seems worth considering. Communication presupposes a framework of mutual knowledge (at least mutual true beliefs) and assumptions about language (or whatever representational system is used). This underlying level need not contain any knowledge or assumptions about the goals of the users of language, in particular no assumption about a general goal of understanding each other (locutionarily and illocutionarily) being needed. Goals come in when people actually use language and linguistic expressions to achieve their extralinguistic or, occasionally, linguistic goals. These goals can be collective or individual, depending on the case. I will argue that there is much communication (e.g., dialogue) which is best understood as joint or collective cooperative activity requiring reference to collective intentionality for its explication (cf. also Tuomela, 1984, Chapter 10 and 1997, for cooperation).