Intentions in Communication (System Development Foundation Benchmark Series) [Hardcover]

Philip R. Cohen (Editor), Jerry Morgan (Editor), Martha E. Pollack (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0262031507 | ISBN-13: 978-0262031509 | Publication Date: June 28, 1990

Intentions in Communication brings together major theorists from artificial intelligence and computer science, linguistics, philosophy, and psychology whose work develops the foundations for an account of the role of intentions in a comprehensive theory of communication. It demonstrates, for the first time, the emerging cooperation among disciplines concerned with the fundamental role of intention in communication.The fourteen contributions in this book address central questions about the nature of intention as it is understood in theories of communication, the crucial role of intention recognition in understanding utterances, the use of principles of rational interaction in interpreting speech acts, the contribution of intonation contours to intention recognition, and the need for more general models of intention that support a view of dialogue as a collaborative activity.The contributors are Michael E. Bratman, Philip R. Cohen, Hector J. Levesque, Martha E. Pollack, Henry Kautz, Andrew J. I. Jones, C. Raymond Perrault, Daniel Vanderveken, Janet Pierrehumbert, Julia Hirschberg, Richmond H. Thomason, Diane J Litman, James F. Allen, John R. Searle, Barbara J. Grosz, Candace L. Sidner, Herbert H. Clark and Deanna Wilkes-Gibbs. The book also includes commentaries by James F. Allen, W. A Woods, Jerry Morgan, Jerrold M. Sadock Jerry R. Hobbs, and Kent Bach.Philip R. Cohen is a Senior Computer Scientist at the Artificial Intelligence Center at SRI International and is a Senior Researcher with the Center for the Study of Language and Information; Jerry Morgan is Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics and Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois; Martha E. Pollack is a Computer Scientist at the Artificial Intelligence Center at SRI International and is a Senior Researcher with the Center for the Study of Language and Information. Intentions in Communication is included in the System Development Foundation Benchmark Series.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Philip R. Cohen is a Senior Computer Scientist at the Artificial Intelligence Center at SRI International and is a Senior Researcher with the Center for the Study of Language and Information

Martha E. Pollack is a Computer Scientist at the Artificial Intelligence Center at SRI International and is a Senior Researcher with the Center for the Study of Language and Information.

Jerry Morgan is Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics and Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois

Product Details

• Hardcover: 520 pages
• Publisher: A Bradford Book (June 28, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262031507
• ISBN-13: 978-0262031509
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,790,150 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Good opportunity, July 12, 2010

By 

Mihaela - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Intentions in Communication (System Development Foundation Benchmark Series) (Hardcover)

It's nice to find on Amazon a book edited in 1990, entirely new and at a reduced price.

4.0 out of 5 stars Lots of Controversial Material to Think About, May 23, 2009

By 

Herbert Gintis (Northampton, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Intentions in Communication (System Development Foundation Benchmark Series) (Hardcover)

This big book (500+ pages) brings together researchers from several disciplines, from computer science and artificial intelligence to philosophy and psychology to address the problem of intentions in a theory of communication. The motivation for the book and many of its authors is the fact that standard artificial intelligence models of communication do not include intentionality, and such theories generally fail to explain human communication. Is intentionality key to human communication, and if so, how?

I purchased this book to read one paper in it, "Collective Intentions and Actions" (pp. 401--415). Searle's goal here to extend his theory of individual intentionality (he published a book with the title "Intentionality" in 1983) to a theory of collective intentionality. I wanted to find out Searle's defense of the notion of collective intentionality because several game theorists and their associated philosophers claim that there is a concept of "we-thinking" or "collective reasoning," that goes beyond the aggregation of individual decision-making. I very much respect the economists and game-theoretically oriented philosophers who make this claim, including (the late) Michael Bacharach, Nathalie Gold, and Robert Sugden. However, I have been completely unpersuaded by their arguments. Parallel arguments have been made by philosophers Margaret Gilbert and Raimo Tuomela, but these are, if anything, even less persuasive. I have always found philosopher John Searle to be extremely creative and clear as a thinker, so it seemed to me that his analysis of collective intentionality might fill in the gaps the leave me skeptical of the literature.


Searle argues (a) collective intentionality obviously exists, and (b) it cannot be explained as an aggregation of individual intentionalities, but rather "is a primitive phenomenon." His argument for (a) is that "It seems obvious that there really is a collective intentional behavior as distinct from individual intentional behavior. You can see this by watching a football team execute a pass play or hear it by listening to an orchestra." (p. 401) However, this is not only not obvious, it is plainly wrong. What is experienced in this and similar cases is highly coordinated cooperative behavior. In both cases, the role of each participant has been carefully marked out by a single agent, whom I will call the "choreographer," or perhaps a few interacting agents using a collective decision process to adjudicate differences among them in the content of the choreography, and conveyed to the members of the "team." A "pass play" in football is diagrammed, memorized by the players, and carried out on precise cue under objectively given conditions. A similar analysis holds for the interpretation of a musical score and its execution by the musicians.

Searle argues that we can see the collective intentionality in the idea that there is a collective goal to the group---winning the football match, and producing beautiful music. However, individual group members may place some value on this "goal," but are unlikely to be motivated thereby unless they are properly rewarded in other, usually more material, ways. Moreover, some group members may actually have the intention of out-performing other members, thereby gaining personally at the expense of the "collective intention" of the group. Similarly, group members may be performing solely for the pay, or for the chance to get a better job, or even to get a date with another group member. Perhaps Searle can introspect and discover that he has performed in a group with "collective intentional" behavior, but I have not. I am certain that I am not alone. Therefore, even should some people like Searle exist, it would be a miracle if they more than rarely constituted any real collectively interacting cooperative group.


The failure of the team-reasoning models, I believe, is purely empirical. The mental states and behavioral regularities they posit simply do not exist. It is interesting to consider why such plainly creative and intelligent thinkers could come up with such an implausible type of argument. I suspect that the problem is that game theorists and philosophers in the analytical tradition are fundamentally "methodological individualist," believing that all social phenomena can be explained in terms of the aggregated characteristics of individual actors. If this were true, then if collective, highly coordinated cooperation is observed, it must because each individual is capable of "we-reasoning" or "collective intentionality." Indeed, Searle says explicitly that "collective intentionality" is in the head of each participant in the "team." Searle says (p. 407) "There are intentions whose form is: We intend that we perform act A; and such an intention can exist in the mind of each individual agent who is acting as part of the collective."


The alternative is to admit that there are social forces above the level of the individual that permit cooperation. For instance, humans have the ability to recognize that a certain situation indicates that a certain "game" is likely to be played by all individuals involved in that situation. The markers that indicate such a situation may be called a "frame" for the game. For instance, For instance, if I wave my hand at a passing taxi in a large city, both I and the driver of the taxi will consider this an event of the form ``hailing a taxi.'' When the driver stops to pick me up, I am expected to enter the taxi, give the driver an address, and pay the fare at the end of the trip. Any other behavior would be considered bizarre. Similar examples hold for commuting to work, going to church, and all other collective, cooperative activities. The point of social theory is to show how cooperation can emerge from the game-theoretically choreographed interaction of agents, each of whom is an intentional agent, and without the need for an assumption of collective intentionality. Or, so I argue in my book The Bounds of Reason (Princeton, 2009).