Towards a theory of political action: cognition, modality and pragmatism to understand political agents

Abstract

To elaborate the tools with which a theory of political action could be construed, the first task is to start from what stays the same throughout most of our practices (both within a person herself and among different people), i.e. Our cognitive capacities. The basic set of which will be defined as basic cognitive practices. They are described as being deeply action-oriented thus allowing different levels of social complexity; along the idea of intentionality as the voluntary bringing about of a desired state of affairs. The notion of cognition that will be presented serves as a basis into which reasonability could be elaborated, and furthermore, some relevant political behavior could be taken into consideration along the lines presented; specially the idea of state of affairs that exceed the possible actions for their bringing about.