Healing social sciences` psycho-phobia: Founding social action and structure on mental representations

We will fight against the psychophobia that has caracterized the foundation of the Social Sciences and invalidates the social policies. We will present a basic ontology of social action by examining the most important forms, with special focus on pro-social forms, in particular Goal Delegation and Goal Adoption. They are the basic atoms of exchange, cooperation, group action, and organization. We will ground this in the mental representations (beliefs and goals) of the agent in a social (inter)action: the individual social mind. We need such an analytical account of social action to provide a good scientific conceptual apparatus for social theory. We will try to show why we need mind-reading and cognitive agents (and therefore why we have to characterize cognitive levels of coordination and social action); why we need goals about the mind of the other (in interaction and in collaboration), or 'adhesion' and social commitment to the other; why cognition, communication and agreement are not enough for modelling and implementing cooperation; why emergent pre-cognitive structures and constraints should be formalized, and why emergent cooperation is needed also among planning and deliberative social actors.