Perceiving Together

Abstract

Abstract Over the last three decades the phenomenon of ‘sharing’ has been the object of many discussions in the field of collective intentionality or social ontology, whose discussions typically revolve around the paradigmatic cases of ‘shared actions’, which include, without being limited to, shared perceptions. By developing an account of shared perceptual responsiveness, this chapter specifies the correct way to satisfy the required conditions of shared perception: a perceptual We emerges in the way individuals jointly respond to commonly perceived cues. Throughout, the chapter stresses the fundamental role of embodied agency and pre-reflectively experienced time, the two pillars upon which shared perceptual responses rest. It is argued that co-experiencers typically display their normative sensitivity to shared perceptual situations by acting in certain typical ways (and not others), which is in turn only possible if they share a temporal horizon. Ultimately, shared perceptual responsiveness rests on a shared sense of time.