19 -- social aggregates

19.  Individuals are subject to a given intentionality.  Aggregates of individual, properly speaking, are not.  We might speculate, for example, whether a colony of ants has something resembling a group intelligence and by implication a group intentionality and a social consciousness that transcends the consciousness of any one ant, but it remains just that, speculation.  Even if it were true, I have no way of entering into -- no way of being subject to the subjectivity -- of some transcendental subjectivity.   I may feel hunger, you may feel hunger, and all about us may feel hunger, but it is my hunger, not yours, not theirs, that I feel. 

This is an important point, with implications, but first what it does not imply.  When I say conjointly that 'intentionality is given from without' and that 'I am brought into being by intentionality,' I am not making transcendental claims regarding intentionality.  I am saying, on the one hand, that it is given from within the brute facts of my physiological existence (e.g. the felt need to satisfy hunger) or that, on the other hand, it is given from within the constituted facts of my social existence (e.g. the felt need to satisfy the conditions of checkmate).   Moreover, when I say, 'the constituted facts of my social existence,' the past tense of 'constituted' is a recognition, at once, that human beings are born into a "functioning world populated by others," and that society is historically prior to the individuals in it.  I am, properly speaking, no more my desire to satiate my hunger than I am my desire to achieve checkmate, but each intentionality brings me into being in a particular way as a consciousness of the world. 

Although few would think of hunger, and the physiology that leads to our need to satiate hunger, as a "construct of human freedom," our instrumental response to hunger we nevertheless believe, intuitively, "can always be unmade or remade through free human action."  If one thing doesn't work, another might, and most subject to extreme hunger, would continue searching until energy or imagination failed them.  Conversely, however, most would think of checkmate, and the need to satisfy the conditions of checkmate, as a genuine construct of human freedom.  Imagine here someone suggesting that, instead of capturing the king as the desired state of affairs, we each seek to capture the queen, all else remaining the same.  The game would, as a result, be wholly different.   The instrumental response to the newly defined checkmate would likewise need to be unmade and remade through "free human action."  Imagine here, an opponent who simply seeks to capture the queen, without, so to speak, announcing the fact.  The game would fall apart.  I might capture his king, declare checkmate, and my opponent might say, "we're not finished yet.  I haven't captured your queen."  The statement would be meaningless, or irrational, within the game as I have defined it. 

To make the leap, I am nevertheless suggesting that 'social organization' is brought into being by the commonality of a common intentionality.  Although I do not feel your hunger and you do not feel my hunger, we each feel hunger and behave accordingly.   Although I do not feel your desire for checkmate and you do not feel my desire for checkmate, we each desire checkmate and behave accordingly.