Collective Intelligence: Philosophical Genealogy of the Concept

Abstract

The article is devoted to the formation of the collective intelligence concept in philosophy. Its beginning can be attributed to ancient and medieval idea of general reason, which was expressed mainly in a theological manner. Since Modern time, intellect has been firmly associated with a subject understood as a specific human "I", and that which problematizes the idea of its supra-individual forms. Only Hegel’s dialectics, Despite its speculative essence, it was only Hegel’s dialectics that opened up the possibility of interconnection between private and general in rational life. XIX-XX The 19th and 20th centuries are characterized by the emergence of the first theories of intelligence and growth of pluralism in its understanding. Collective intelligence turns out to be possible due to the commonality of people’s material activities of people (Marx), a collective system of concepts (Durkheim), "Lebenswelt" of common meanings (Husserl), the system of objectively embodied knowledge (Popper), collective intentionality (Searle). Philosophy has gradually overcome both the logocentrism in understanding of intelligence and the metaphysical gap between the general and the particular in it, beginning to consider collective intelligence as a product of individuals’ intersubjective activity of individuals themselves.