Common Knowledge and Reductionism about Shared Agency

Most reductionist accounts of intentional joint action include a condition that it must be common knowledge between participants that they have certain intentions and beliefs that cause and coordinate the joint action. However, this condition has typically simply been taken for granted rather than argued for. The condition is not necessary for ensuring that participants are jointly responsible for the action in which each participates, nor for ensuring that each treats the others as partners rather than as social tools. It is thus something of a mystery why the condition is so widely accepted. By rejecting three arguments that could potentially support it, I argue that reductionists should get rid of the condition. I show that two of the arguments fail. While the third argument is intuitively compelling, it builds on key premises that are unavailable to the reductionist.     

The impact of artistic awakening and education on the young

Art is both a motor for the development of children, and an extraordinary means of communication. More time must be given to art in schools, through the increased training of teachers and by rebalancing the pace of teaching.     

Poetry

Poetry allows the individual to step beyond an aristotelian rationale of exclusion. The creation that it underpins, the breath that it gives birth to can restore the unity of the mind. Poetry is a way of understanding the world, of facing its complexities by throwing open the field of possibility.