Rivista di estetica

Social objects from intentionality to documentality

Volume 57

What keeps society together? A popular answer has been that collective intentionality lies at the bottom of all manifestations of social reality. Several problems and criticisms have arisen against such a view in the very recent literature. An alternative approach replaces the notion of collective intentionality with the notion of “documentality”: the basis of social reality is the inscription of acts. The multifariousness of perspectives and topics addressed in the present volume witnesses the great vitality of the debate. Our guess is that such vitality is destined to increase in parallel to, and partly because of, the progressive complexification of contemporary societies.