Anthony Waterman wrote:   
> Individual football players 'really exist', and they have   
> 'desires, interests and passions' that may be gratified by   
> the victory of their team over another. The team does not   
> 'really exist', which is why I called it an abstraction.   
> Useful, but dangerous when used anthropomorphically.   
  
  
I try to imagine some arguing that while the individual   
planks really exist, the ship does not, and while speaking   
of this abstraction "ship" can be useful, it is dangerous   
when used plankomorphically.  
  
If your point were just that we should not confuse the   
category 'team' with the category 'player' (or the category   
'ship' with the category 'plank'), nobody would object of   
course.  But you are asking for *much* more.  
  
  
Anthony Waterman wrote:  
> If, in order to make my (Paley's) point I have to concede   
> 'rationality' to dogs, so be it. What I do not want to do   
> is to ascribe it to the pack.   
  
  
I was about to retort that your wants are really beside the   
point, but then I realized that you may disagree.  ;-)  
You clearly consider the postulate of some conscious   
experience, like "want", to be prerequisite to any   
ascription of "intent".  (Economists are so in love with   
metaphysics!)  An aggregate of cells can, for mysterious   
reasons, produce qualia.  You apparently want to restrict   
the use of the language of intentionality to cases where   
certain qualia are present.  For example, I deduce from your   
discomfort with the idea of a deer-seeking wolf pack that   
you must be very uncomfortable with the idea of a heat-  
*seeking* missile, for example---regardless of whether   
I might find that a useful description when trying to escape   
it.  And whether I am allowed to observe that a frog tried   
to catch a fly but failed, I suppose, must depend on whether   
there was hidden within that froggy bundle some   
consciousness experience, however dim, of "trying".  And the   
neoclassical theory of the firm must be a great puzzle: will   
you let may speak of this abstraction *choosing* an   
appropriate input mix, or is all such talk "dangerous"?  
  
Cheers,  
Alan Isaac