ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a core element of the theory of collective intentionality, the theory of collective intentional action, and its relation to the study of language. It examines several ways in which the theory of collective intentional action provides a basis for reconceiving traditional debates in the philosophy of language. The chapter describes resources that become available for pragmatic explanation when conversations are understood as rule-governed collective intentional activities. It argues that minimal communication is a collective intentional action type and explores the consequences for accounts of speaker meaning. The chapter proposes an account of linguistic meaning that employs irreducibly collectivist concepts. Conversations are understood as cooperative enterprises by Gricean pragmatics, the most influential account of conversational implicature. In addition, empirical research about the development of communication in children supports the collectivist account. The collectivist account of conversation enables us to articulate the sense in which conversations are necessarily cooperative.
