Thinking Together: Advising as Collaborative Deliberation

Abstract

We spend a good deal of time thinking about how and when to advise others, and how to respond to others advising us. But philosophical discussions of the nature and norms of advising have been scattered and somewhat disconnected. The most focused discussion has come from philosophers of language interested in whether advising is an assertive or directive kind of speech act. This paper argues that the ordinary category of advising is much more heterogenous than has been appreciated: it is possible to advise by asserting relevant facts, by issuing directives, by asking questions, and by other kinds of adviceless advising. The heterogeneity of advising makes speech act-theoretic accounts of advising look like accounts of special cases, which motivates us to look elsewhere for an account of what advising is. I suggest that we think about advising as a distinctive species of joint practical thinking, which I shall call collaborative deliberation, and show how our need for a concept to pick out this kind of joint activity emerges from our practical needs as deliberators. This view helps to illuminate a number of puzzling features of advising, and offers some guidance to be better at advising and at being advised.