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Prioritizing Otherness: The Line Between Vacuous Individuality and Hollow Collectivism

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Sociality and Normativity for Robots

Part of the book series: Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality ((SIPS))

Abstract

In conceptualizing social robotics it is tempting to view the social dimension as simply an additional layer, overlaid upon the motility and autonomy of individual robots. This paper problematizes such an approach, arguing instead for treating the process of interaction as, in a sense, prior to both individuality and sociality. After analyzing the notion of priority at work in claims of the form, “individuality is prior to sociality,” we turn to lacunae in enactivist approaches to sociality exemplified by the work of De Jaegher and Di Paolo. These, we argue, can only be overcome by means of an interdisciplinary appreciation of the problem of alterity .

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Correspondence to David Eck .

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Eck, D., Levine, A. (2017). Prioritizing Otherness: The Line Between Vacuous Individuality and Hollow Collectivism. In: Hakli, R., Seibt, J. (eds) Sociality and Normativity for Robots. Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53133-5_4

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