Collective deliberation plays a central role in both decision-making and judgment formation. Despite increasing research interest in this topic in philosophy and political science, a unified approach and a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon are still lacking. This challenge stems, in part, from the conceptual ambiguity surrounding collective deliberation. This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of collective deliberation by proposing a conceptual elaboration on its meaning. Employing Carnap’s method of explication, I take the ordinary uses of the term as the explicandum and develop the concept of collective deliberation as shared reasoning (explicatum). More precisely, collective deliberation is characterized as shared reasoning embedded within a broader joint activity on the part of the group and applied in response to questions that require argumentation. Shared reasoning is further clarified in terms of its necessary conditions and objectives. Finally, the concept of collective deliberation as shared reasoning is evaluated against key criteria of theoretical adequacy (i.e., simplicity, similarity, exactness, and fruitfulness). I argue that the proposed concept enhances theoretical development, fosters theoretical unification, and advances our understanding of collective deliberation.

We have the capacity to act together in shared intentional and shared cooperative ways. This lecture argues that our capacity for the plan-based, mind-supported cross-temporal organization of our individual activities, together with certain further elements, suffices for our capacity for the mind-supported, small-scale social organization characteristic of acting together. These two fundamental forms of human practical organization––diachronic and small-scale social––are for us grounded in a common core: our capacity for planning agency.