Lucia Angelino

The Role of the Third in the Genesis of a We-perspective

teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers.

Introduction

One of the still controversial issues in the social ontology debate is whether the 'we' is a primitive and unconditioned phenomenon [START_REF] Searle | Collective Intentions and Actions[END_REF][START_REF] Searle | The Construction of Social Reality[END_REF][START_REF] Tuomela | The Philosophy of Sociality: The Shared Point of View[END_REF][START_REF] Schmid | Wir-Intentionalität: Kritik Des Ontologischen Individualismus Und Rekonstruktion Der Gemeinschaft[END_REF] characterized by a sui generis psychological mode [START_REF] Gallotti | Social Cognition in the We-mode[END_REF], or whether it is a developmental achievement that has dyadic forms of joint intentionality as its necessary precondition [START_REF] Zahavi | Second-Person Engagement, Self-Alienation, and Group-Identification[END_REF][START_REF] Tomasello | A Natural History of Human Thinking[END_REF][START_REF] Brink | The Primacy of the 'We'?[END_REF]. In this paper, I defend a thesis that mainly sides with this latter view, but which also adds some complexities and implies some innovations. In opposition to the usual practice, I do not choose dyadic, face-to-face-based forms of 'we', as my point of departure, but, rather, I focus on far more complex, large-scale, and polydiadic configurations of the 'we' which go beyond the here and now and involve the plural positions of you and they. The philosophical problem, I address is centred on the question of how best to conceive of the conditions of the emergence of a 'we-perspective' in a 'group made up of many' 1 : should one prioritize the concrete face-to-face encounter between self and other, and highlight the importance of the I-you relation -as a key to a proper understanding of the foundations of a 'we-perspective' -or should one rather focus on far more complex social configurations involving the figure and the function of the third (le tiers)? 2 My point is that the third is a keystone for group-identification and has a crucial role to play in the transition from a first-person singular ('Iperspective') to a first-person plural perspective ('we-perspective'). Accordingly, my thesis is that in order to account for the genesis of a 'weperspective' in large-scale and polydiadic configurations of the 'we', one needs to shift the theoretical focus from the You to the Third: from dyadic face-to-face (immediate) relations of reciprocity between I and You, self and other to ternary relations of 'mediated reciprocity' involving the figure and the functions of a third party, who is at the same time an Other for the I and a representative of the symbolic order. 3 The decisive point to be retained in this context is that the Third (le tiers) is to be understood as a person (e.g. an external observer, a witness or a third in-group agent) rather than as a realm of being 4 (e.g. a shared object or a common project). In this sense, as Fischer has clearly pointed out, 'The third [. . .] means "another" whose functions are different from the "first other", (the simple alter ego) and which is conceived of in such a way that the addition of a fourth or fifth party would not add any greater functionality to any schema involving simply firt, other and Third parties' (Fischer 2013, 90). In other words, the third is to be seen as a third in-group agent who might give rise to complex social configurations which cannot be fully explained with reference to the dyadic model of the ego and alter ego. This line of reasoning (which I call the 'Turn to the Third' in social theory, initiated by [START_REF] Simmel | The Sociology of Georg Simmel[END_REF][START_REF] Freud | Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego[END_REF]) is familiar in the social sciences. In contemporary German social philosophy, 5 and sociological theory (Berger and Luckmann 1991), one finds critical reflections on the Third as a key to understanding the emergence of complex social configurations -such as political and media institutions -which cannot be fully explained with reference to the dyadic model of the ego and alter ego. It is rare, however, to find principled reflections on the function of the third within philosophical debates on the 'we'. So far, these two debates have developed in isolation from each other, with the unfortunate consequence that several opportunities for deepening our understanding of the 'we' in its multiple facets have been lost. That the intervention of a third redefines dyadic relationships (between ego and alter ego), and at the same time also plays an important role in the transition from small groups (group of two, or dyadic group) to larger social units (group made up of many, or plural group) as well as from interactions to institutions, is an unquestioned point in the social theory debate. That it has an important role to play in the process of group identification and, therefore, in the transition from a first-person singular ('I-perspective') to a first-person plural perspective (a 'we-perspective') is what I argue for here.

Accordingly, my aim is to assess the epistemological and heuristic pertinence of the notion of third party (le tiers) in contemporary research on the 'we', particularly as applied to account for the emergence of an enlarged 'weperspective' in which each individual thinks from the particular standpoint of all those involved with him/her, and moves from a subjective self-regarding perspective to a more objective and socially inclusive view. In particular, I will explore the function of the third in the process of group identification, by combining Sartre's Theory of Practical Ensembles with ideas drawn from Freud's Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego.

To outline the structure of this paper: in the first section, I consider the dyadic model, focused on the importance of the I-you relation, which is typically applied to account for the emergence of a 'we-perspective', and I highlight the limitations of such a model. In the second section, I outline an alternative framework centred on the Third by drawing inspiration from Sartre's account of the genesis of groups in the Critique of Dialectical Reason, and by focusing on the ideas of Freud's Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, that enrich and clarify the Sartrian alternative model. In a final move, I explore the epistemological and heuristic potential of this alternative frame-work centred on the Third (le tiers) in contemporary research on the 'we', particularly as applied to account for the emergence of a 'we-perspective' in groups made up of many. In so doing, I intend to show that the third has an important role to play in the constitution of large-scale, polydiadic, and mediated configurations of the 'we', which go beyond the here and now and involve the plural positions of you and they.

The I, the You and the We. The Importance of Reciprocity Let me start by considering the dyadic model, which is typically applied to account for the emergence of a 'we-perspective'. According to a prominent and recent view, supported by both philosophical arguments and empirical evidence, a 'we-perspective' typically arises out of a dyadic I-you relation involving a 'special kind of reciprocity' (Zahavi 2019, 254), that requires the ability to adopt what has been termed, in developmental psychology and social neuroscience, a 'second person perspective ', 6 in which I relate to another as a you -as somebody who is also attending to and addressing me. This strategy is clearly illustrated by Zahavi's proposal, which today has come to be seen as a classical treatment of this topic in the current debate. According to his proposal, which mainly draws on the writings of German classical phenomenologists, such as [START_REF] Stein | The Collected Works of Edith Stein. On the Problem of Empathy[END_REF][START_REF] Stein | The Collected Works of Edith Stein. On the Problem of Empathy[END_REF][START_REF] Stein | Beiträge zur philosophischen Begründung der Psychologie und der Geisteswissenschaften[END_REF], [START_REF] Husserl | Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution[END_REF][START_REF] Husserl | Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität: Texte aus dem Nachlass[END_REF], [START_REF] Scheler | The Nature of Sympathy[END_REF]] 2008[START_REF] Schütz | The Phenomenology of the Social World[END_REF][START_REF] Schütz | The Phenomenology of the Social World[END_REF], the capacity to adopt a second-person perspective and to establish a I-you relation of reciprocity between self and other is crucial for the constitution of a first-person plural perspective. To adopt a second-person perspective means more concretely to be engaged in 'a subject-subject (you-me) relation where I am aware of and directed at the other and, at the same time, implicitly aware of myself in the accusative, as attended to or addressed by the other' (Zahavi 2019, 255). In other words, the emergence of a 'we-perspective' requires that 'I experience and internalize the other's perspective on myself, that I take over the apprehension that others have of me' (Zahavi 2019, 255).

As important as this argument 7 might be, one limitation is that it typically applies to transient forms of 'we' that are bound to the here and now of faceto-face interaction between 'ad hoc pairs of individuals in the moment' (Tomasello 2014, 5). But there exist other forms of 'we' that are not tied to the here and now of a physical interaction in the same way and rather imply both temporal and spatial distancing. Arguably, people can experience themselves as members of a we-community (say a moral, religious, or cultural community) even if they are not de facto together with the relevant others. Indeed, the experience of social isolation we have been living through during the COVID-19 pandemic attests to the ethical possibility of sustaining meaningful relationships with others, even in the absence of direct, immediate face-to-face relationships.

There is, in short, no question that an account of the 'we', which focuses on face-to-face interactions and takes reciprocity between I and you as its starting point, is fairly restrictive 8 and has to be supplemented by a systematic clarification of far more complex social configurations, which go beyond the here and now, and involve the plural positions of you and they. It is this lacuna that this paper seeks to overcome by drawing inspiration from Sartre, 9 whose analyses of the genesis of the 'fused group' in the Theory of Practical Ensembles are focused on the key role of the 'third party' and of ternary relations of 'mediated reciprocity'

Beyond Pure Reciprocity: The Third

The importance of the third party (le tiers, the Third) recurs in Sartre's analysis of our '"Being-With" (Mitsein) and the "We"' in Being and Nothingness, and in much of his later social philosophy on the genesis of groups in the Critique of Dialectical Reason. It is worth recalling, however, that the 'third party' -as Sartre portrays it in these two works -has a different meaning. It is to be understood either as an outside observer (a witness), or as third, ingroup agent, and might accordingly intervene in two opposite directions. Although there are clearly many ways in which the presence of a third can modify our relation to the other(s), they eventually lead to the self joining with the other(s) either as an 'us' or as a 'we'. 10 This conceptual ambivalence can be felt very quickly, by comparing the function of the third, as described in Being and Nothingness, with that elaborated in the Critique of Dialectical Reason. In Being and Nothingness, the third party is presented by Sartre as a witness or as an external (outgroup) observer who acting either as a disturbance of pure reciprocity between self and other or as an interrupter of intra-group relationships would come to give a new form to the interaction in progress bringing an element of awareness into the play. If, for example, 'I am engaged in a conflict with the Other' [START_REF] Sartre | Critique of Dialectical Reason[END_REF](Sartre [ ] 1976, 417), 417), and a third appears who 'embraces both of us with his look', I am immediately aware of my conflict as objectified before the look of the third. My outside is no longer a simple alienation of myself before the other's look. I now pre-reflectively and nonthematically recognize myself as forming a unity ('us-relation') -although conflictualwith the other's behaviour: I discover the 'Us', in whom I am integrated outside, in the look of a third person who comes on the scene and looks simultaneously at me, at the others and at the situation (or common environment) in which we are jointly located and engaged. As soon as a third person appears, I apprehend myself as engaged in an 'Us-object' together with others, and it is this collective alienation, which I assume when saying 'Us': I experience 'my being-looked-at-as-a-thing-engaged-in-a-totality-ofthings' [START_REF] Sartre | Being and Nothingness. An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology[END_REF](Sartre [ ] 1969, 421), 421). In a similar way, class consciousness occurs when I assume myself as forming a community with others before the look of the third. In the same vein, I can be united to a group through the mediation of a third conceived of as a community opposed to my own. For example, as 'an African American man', I can be viewed 'as part of the African American community' -regardless of where I live -'by the "white" community that mediates' my 'solidarity with other African Americans wherever they live' (Catalano 2010, 83). The third would therefore, in a first sense, be a third person, or by extension a third group, who would come to unify any other two or more human beings by 'observing' them from outside and bringing an element of awareness into the play. It would be wrong, however, to reduce the Sartrian conception of the Third to this dimension.

Indeed, in the Critique of the Dialectical Reason, the third party is described as a third in-group agent 11 whose function is, above all, to foster the mutual comprehension among group members. In this second sense, the third party is a mediator (or a crucial mediating factor) and must be present in order to give rise to a 'we-perspective' in which each individual thinks from the particular standpoint of all those involved with him/her. The crucial point to be retained in this context is that each member in the group is a third in relation to every other member: each individual might become a third within the group and might act as a mediating third through whom all are unified. In a group, as Sartre points out, each member is a Third, and each 'totalizes the reciprocity of others' [START_REF] Sartre | Critique of Dialectical Reason[END_REF](Sartre [ ] 1976, 374), 374). In this respect, as Joseph Catalano observes, 'each, as a potential regulatory third, can become equally an actual regulatory third, without becoming a transcendent other to the group' (Catalano 1986, 175).

It is appropriate to conclude these preliminary remarks with a word on the relation between Sartre's earlier and later views of the third. As different as these figures of the third might be, I interpret their function to be the same: whether outside or inside the group, the third is a 'unifying and mediating factor in human interrelationships' [START_REF] Sartre | Critique of Dialectical Reason[END_REF](Sartre [ ] 1976, 100-109), 100-109). But, the decisive point to be retained, is that the third who is inside the group gives rise to a positive bond uniting human beings, which Sartre implicitly redefines in the Critique of Dialectical Reason as a genuine 'we-relation'. The result is that something like a 'we-relation' emerges in the 'group-in-fusion', where each individual is also a third in relation to all the others. In this respect, we can see an evolution in Sartre's thought. 12 As it will become evident, Sartre's view of the 'we-relation' in the Critique is a change from his position in Being and Nothingness.

The Third as In-group Agent

It is this second meaning of the third and correspondingly of the 'we' to which attention is now turned in this article: the third as in-group agent, 13 who signifies the identity and the tendencies of the group to which he 14 belongs, thereby giving rise to an enlarged 'we', which cannot be fully explained with reference to the dyadic model of the ego and alter ego. To this end, I suggest looking closer at the chapter of the Critique of Dialectical Reason entitled 'The Fused Group', 15 where Sartre redefines the function of the third party in a more detailed and original way than in Being and Nothingness.

In this fascinating and somehow forgotten chapter of The Critique of Dialectical Reason, where Sartre seeks to account for the social integration/ unification of human multiplicities beyond the utilitarian (individualistic) and the organicist (holistic) model, he faults sociologists for failing to offer a proper account of the relationship between the individual and the community. It is this lacuna that Sartre seeks to overcome by introducing his original concepts of third party and 'mediated reciprocity'.

In his own words, it is 'a common error of many sociologists to treat the group as a binary relation (individual-community)' -in which the individual is either subordinated (and therefore dissolved in) to the group or in front of it, as a separate entity -'whereas, in reality, it is a ternary relation' [START_REF] Sartre | Critique of Dialectical Reason[END_REF](Sartre [ ] 1976, 421), 421), in that each individual, as third party, is connected, in the unity of a single praxis (and, therefore, of a single perception), with all the group members, and with each of them individually, from within. In other words, the relations within a group are ternary and not, as many sociologists think, binary. Each person approaching the group is not an individual other joining the group as a common other. Rather, each person is initially related to every other through the group itself.

Moreover, 'whatever relations of simple reciprocity' there are within a group, 'these relations, though transfigured by their being-in-a-group, are not constitutive' [START_REF] Sartre | Critique of Dialectical Reason[END_REF] 1976, 374) of a 'group behaviour and of group thoughts' [START_REF] Sartre | Critique of Dialectical Reason[END_REF](Sartre [ ] 1976, 374), 374). What is needed is a ternary relation of 'mediated reciprocity' involving the figure and the function of a third party, on the basis of which simple reciprocity becomes 'aware' of itself as 'recipro-cal connection' [START_REF] Sartre | Critique of Dialectical Reason[END_REF] 1976, 109) and, therefore, transforms a plurality of individuals into a group 'aware of itself as a unity of individuals in solidarity' [START_REF] Sartre | Critique of Dialectical Reason[END_REF](Sartre [ ] 1976, 346), 346).

By third party (le tiers), Sartre means, 16 more precisely, a third, in-group agent who acts as if he were the whole group acting within him. 17 He finds himself in the situation where, by acting on the behalf of the group to which he belongs (e.g. as a temporary leader 18 ), he induces all the other members to act immediately in the name of the same group 19 and, thereby, engender the social convergence of human multiplicities. That is why 'from a structural point of view, the third party' can be defined as 'the human mediation through which the multiplicity of epicenters and ends (identical and sepa-rate) organizes itself directly, as determined by a synthetic objective' [START_REF] Sartre | Critique of Dialectical Reason[END_REF](Sartre [ ] 1976, 367), 367).

As 'creator of objectives and organizer of means' [START_REF] Sartre | Critique of Dialectical Reason[END_REF] 1976, 381), the third party 'stands in a tense and contradictory relation of transcendenceimmanence' [START_REF] Sartre | Critique of Dialectical Reason[END_REF](Sartre [ ] 1976, 381) , 381) in that he is inside the group yet outside of it as 'unifier'. In this respect, he might be considered as a director or as a leader, whose function is to unify a gathered multiplicity of individuals by posing in their reciprocal actions a relationship to a synthetic objective, which goes beyond the individuality of each. As long as the fusion of the group continues, however, this sovereign power, passes immediately to another individual in the group who, acting freely on the behalf of the same group, assumes in turn this function in an endless process of grouping. In other words, each member in the group might become a third and might act as a regulatory third through whom all are unified in an endless process of grouping. In this respect, as Catalano has clearly pointed out in his Commentary, 'the law of the group-in-fusion is what Sartre terms an "alternation of statutes": each, as potential regulatory third, can become equally an actual regulatory third, without becoming a transcendent other to the group' (Catalano 1986, 175).

In this alternation of statutes 'which appear as the very law of the fused group' [START_REF] Sartre | Critique of Dialectical Reason[END_REF](Sartre [ ] 1976, 381), 381), there emerges a movement of 'mediated reciprocity' between two 'third parties' who come together in the generating movement of the group. Each does not act in the name of the other in front of him; he acts in the name of the group that does not yet exist and to which he gives rise at the very moment he acts as its representative.

The most important result of this movement of 'mediated reciprocity' is a process of group identification, which alters the first-person singular perspective, insofar as everyone finds himself acting in a completely new way: 'not as an individual, nor as Other, but as an individual incarnation of the common person' [START_REF] Sartre | Critique of Dialectical Reason[END_REF](Sartre [ ] 1976, 357), 357).

At this juncture, there emerges the first 'we-subject' (nous), which is 'practical but not substantial' [START_REF] Sartre | Critique of Dialectical Reason[END_REF](Sartre [ ] 1976, 394) , 394) and plural rather than singular, because it emerges in the ubiquity of this movement of mediated reciprocity between several selves. This point leads me to say something about the kind of 'we' that merges and emerges with this move-ment of 'mediated reciprocity'. Although Sartre still denies the existence of a 'we-relation' in the sense of 'an a priori positive bond uniting humans' (Catalano 1986, 34), he implicitly redefines this notion in this chapter of the Critique of Dialectical Reason. The result is that something like a 'we-perspective' emerges in a movement of mediated reciprocity where each individual is simultaneously an I and a third in relation to every other. According to Sartre, there is 'nothing magical' in this result. It merely requires the interiorization of a thirdparty perspective, which entails a radical alteration of the first-person singular perspective, so that everyone in the group comes to think, act, and feel 'in a completely new way: not as an individual, nor as an Other, but as an individual incarnation of the common person' [START_REF] Sartre | Critique of Dialectical Reason[END_REF](Sartre [ ] 1976, 357), 357).

Moreover, each individual who plays the role of a 'third party' brings about a relation of a new, distinctive kind amongst the group members. This new relation which is born of fundamental reciprocity is no longer the simple, immediate, direct and lived dyadic relation between I and you, but a 'relation of each to each, with and through all: it is primarily a particular reciprocity which unites an X to a Y or several Y's' [START_REF] Sartre | Critique of Dialectical Reason[END_REF](Sartre [ ] 1976, 467), 467), through the mediation of the whole group's, becoming, in some 'third party', regulatory of itself; a reciprocity between the group members mediated by a 'third party'. In this respect, the third party is a mediator that must be present in order for a particular relationship amongst the group members to be configured.

The most important feature of this relationship lies in the fundamental characteristics of mediation, which is neither an object nor an objective but 'the group's praxis' 20 'laying down its own laws' [START_REF] Sartre | Critique of Dialectical Reason[END_REF](Sartre [ ] 1976, 467), 467), in each 'third party'. In other words, all relations within a group are character-ized by a distinctive mediation. Group relations are relations of reciprocity mediated by and through the group precisely as the group is a praxis.

Without going into the finer details of Sartre's very deep analyses, it is important for us to focus on the following three points.

First, it is important to notice that the 'third party' has a crucial role to play in the process of group identification, insofar as that the internalization of a third-party perspective (its synthetic point of view on the group action and undertaking) is the basis on which emerges the first 'we', which cannot be attributed either to a single individual or to a collective consciousness, since, as we have seen, it emerges in the ubiquity of a movement of mediated reciprocity between several selves. In other words, what has to be seen, as a key idea is not only the importance of the third as a mediation between the I and the plural positions of you, but, moreover, the key role he plays in the process of group-identification, by which everyone one finds himself acting in a completely new way: 'not as an individual, nor as Other, but as an individual incarnation of the common person' [START_REF] Sartre | Critique of Dialectical Reason[END_REF](Sartre [ ] 1976, 357), 357); that is, of the 'we' of which he is about to become a part. In the same vein, it should be noticed that the figure of the third is that which makes possible the move from a subjective self-regarding perspective (first-person singular) to a more objective and socially inclusive view (a 'we-perspective') in which each individual thinks from the particular standpoint of all those involved or affected together with him/her.

Second, it is equally important to notice that the third party embodies not just a third person, but all those not immediately present and, at the same time, also the leading ideas, motives, norms, values, and aims in which the group members have a share and which bind them together. That is why the third party is that which makes it possible for each self to come into contact with the group's norms, 21 values, aims and their contingences.

Third, it is important to acknowledge that, contrary to appearances, Sartre's point of view on the 'we' in the Critique of Dialectical Reason is not 'individualistic', but nor is it 'holistic'. He does not postulate any preexistence, any pre-eminence of the 'we' in relation to individuals. But the elements that enter into the construction of the 'we', or which produce the emergence of a 'we-perspective', are not directly individuals but rather relations of individuals, which are given at the same time as them, or which simply are as one with them. Thus the 'we' that Sartre tells us about, in the Critique is not merely a composition of individuals; it is a composition of relations -and it is also in this sense that one can read the reiterated affirmations, which holds that the only force that is able to unite men in a society must belong to a third (or a common individual) who can perform an action that is distinctively individual but also surpasses the power of any one individual.

The Function of the Third Party in the Process of Group Identification

In this last section, I focus my attention on the essential role played by the third party in the process of group identification and, therefore, in the transition (shift) from a first-person singular ('I-perspective') to a first-person plural perspective ('we-perspective'). As we have seen, the third party appears to play an important role in this process: not only does he symbolically express the group identity, which in him comes to conscious-ness of itself, but he also embodies the values, motives and aims in which the group members have a share, and which bind them together.

The crucial question that still requires an explanation is how this process can be described psychologically.

To answer this question, I suggest mobilizing the schema of identification developed by Freud in his Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. I will do this in a necessarily abridged and schematic fashion by focusing on the few pages in which Freud sketches a graphic representation of identification. 22 In this fascinating book, in which Freud seeks to overcome the limitations of both Le Bon's and Tarde's crowd psychology, 23 he interprets the process of group identification as meaning that the 'individual gives up his ego ideal' and narcissistic self-love 'and substitutes for it the group ideal as embodied in the leader' (Freud 1959, 78-79). Freud subsequently touches upon the possibility that a 'leading idea' or a 'principle', may in some way serve as a substitute for the 'leader', thereby moving toward an understanding of its function that resonates with the function of the third party, as described by Sartre in the Critique of Dialectical Reason. As we have seen, the third embodies not just a person, but rather the leading ideas, values, norms and aims, in which the group members have a share. Most importantly, it must be present in order for a particular relationship amongst group members to be configured. That is: it binds together several different individuals by posing in their reciprocal relations a connection to an objective and universal meaning.

Returning to Freud -still in a schematic way -this point is progressively developed in the text, by passing through the analysis of two examples -the Army and the Church -which allows him to make a fundamental distinction, namely between a leader that is 'real' (in the case of the Army), 'even if the libidinal investment of which he is the object is fantasmatic', and a leader that is an 'idea' (in the case of the Church, the mystical leader who is the Christ), 'that is to say, he is imaginary' (Balibar 2016, 49). Through this distinction, as E. Balibar has clearly pointed out, 'what appears above all else is the intrinsic division of the idea of an "object" or a "model" of identifications (Freud uses the term Vorbild), which may be considered to be a structural characteristic' (Balibar 2016, 49). That said, the essential point to be retained is that the process of group identification described here by Freud (e.g. 'identification in the singular, as a structure or constitutive mechanism of social life, which has as a correlate the constitution of individual "egos" that are both autonomous and interdependent ' Balibar 2016, 49), requires 'each of the two modalities, both "real" and "ideal", both of which are inscribed into the field of the fantasy. It is their complementarity that harbors the effectiveness of the binding to which Freud gives the generic name of "group" (die gegenseitige Bindung der Massenindividuen)' (Balibar 2016, 49).

In other words, it is important to note that the process of group identification, as described by Freud, implies, above all, that 'a number of individuals have put one and the same object in the place of their ego ideal and have consequently identified themselves with one another in their ego' (Freud 1959, 61).

In conclusion, at the origin of a group behaviour and of group thoughts lie very demanding identification processes on the basis of which the group members identify with one another by means of a similar 'love' for the same values, meanings, and aims. These processes are not driven by the hypnotic influence (of suggestion) exercised by a leader -and should consequently be distinguished from identification by way of imitation and contagion -but nonetheless imply an emotional attachment (tie) 24 to a figure taken as a model or as a prototype of the group's values, and aims -a figure in which these values and aims get inscribed.

That is why, the relations among group members must be described following the schema of a double mimesis, functioning at once horizontally (as identifications between subjects with one another, identification with one's fellow-men or even identifications that project an imaginary similitude) and vertically (although, paradoxically, the graph designed by Freud inscribes this verticality on a horizontal axis), as identification with a 'model' (Vorbild) that is also imaginary, whose power of attraction and suggestion induces, through a return effect, the Spaltung of the subject into an Ich and an Idealich, which are both him and different from him, or better still, as Lacan will say in his commentary (in The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis) it is 'in you more than you,' and thus is at once the same as you and different from you. (Balibar 2016, 50) At this point, one may ask: what is the philosophical importance of all this? I shall argue that the graph of identification sketched by Freud presents a particular interest from the point of view of our philosophical inquiry for at least two reasons.

The most notable of these, is that it holds a mirror up to the complexity of the social relation involved in large-scale and polydiadic configurations of the 'we' that Sartre theoretically conceptualises through the function of the third party. In particular, it casts into high relief that a 'we-perspective' in a 'group made up of many' arises from relations of 'mediated reciprocity' which follow 'the schema of a double mimesis, functioning at once horizon-tally' as identifications between subjects with one another, 'and vertically, as identification with a "model" that is also imaginary' (Balibar 2016, 50), and as such gets inscribed in each third party.

The second, and no less decisive reason, is that the schema of identifica-tion provided by Freud poses a challenge to existing accounts of the 'we', based on the I-you relation, by showing that the shift from a first-person singular ('Iperspective') to a first-person plural perspective ('we-perspective') requires a far more radical alteration of one's sense of the self than the one achieved/effected by adopting a 'second-person perspective'; an alteration of one's sense of the self that implies the capacity to adopt a 'third partyperspective', by which each individual give up his/her own 'ego ideal' and puts in its place the 'group ideal'.

Conclusion

It is worth recalling, to conclude, that the I-you relation involving a special kind of reciprocity between self and other, accounts well enough for the emergence of a 'we-perspective' in dyadic forms of 'we' that are bound to the here and now of face-to-face interactions. But it cannot explain how a 'weperspective' (first-person plural perspective) emerges in far more complex, large-scale, and polydiadic social configurations, which go beyond the here and now and involve the plural positions of you and they.

According to my proposal, in order to trace a way out of this impasse, one needs to shift the theoretical focus from dyadic face-to-face (immediate) relations of reciprocity between I and You, self and other, to ternary relations of 'mediated reciprocity' involving the figure and the functions of a third party. The origin of this complication, which gives birth to the triadic model outlined here, is closely linked to the process of group identification. As we have seen, the capacity to adopt a 'second-person perspective' might be necessary to think oneself in the first-person plural in 'groups of two'; however, it is certainly not sufficient for explaining the shift from a first-person singular to a first-person plural perspective in 'groups made up of many', that is to say, formally more than three, but in fact an undefined number of participants [START_REF] Simmel | The Sociology of Georg Simmel[END_REF], whose interest (or libido, in Freudian terms) must be fixed upon the same value, idea or principle that, for all of them, comes 'to the place of the ego ideal' (Freud 1959, 61). As it should be hopefully clear by now, the third party plays a key role in this process in that he is at the same time an Other for the I and a representative of the symbolic order: not only does he symbolically express the group-identity, which in him comes to consciousness of itself; he also embodies the leading ideas, values, norms and aims in which the group's members have a share, and which bind them together. Most importantly, it binds together several different indivi-duals by posing in their reciprocal relations a relationship to an objective end, faith, objective meaning or universal principle.

Moreover, the third party enables the shift/move from a subjective selfregarding perspective ('first-person singular') to a more objective and socially inclusive view (a 'we-perspective') in which each individual thinks from the particular standpoint of all those involved or affected together with him/her. As Sartre explains in a central passage, the interiorization of a third-party perspective entails, indeed, a radical alteration of the first-person singular perspective so that everyone in the group come to think, act, and feel 'in a completely new way: not as an individual, nor as an Other, but as an individual incarnation of the common person' [START_REF] Sartre | Critique of Dialectical Reason[END_REF](Sartre [ ] 1976, 357), 357).

In conclusion, my argument can be formulated as follows: in addition to the capacity to adopt a second-person perspective -which entails identifica-tions between subjects with one another -the emergence of a 'we-perspective' in a group made up of many requires the identification with a 'model that is also imaginary', and as such might get inscribed in each group member playing the role of a third, therefore, communicating an identity of interest and purpose to all the others. Needless to say, the identifications to which I refer are not only identifications with a positive model but might also be negative identifications through the rejection and the exclusion of the other, of the enemy, or of the foreign. This is not the right place for an extensive discussion of this ambivalence, but let me suggest that, even though eluded in this paper, this ambivalence is opened up by both Sartre's of and Freud's analysis (of conflict and cooperation, love and hate, respectively) aimed at understanding what a group is and how it is constituted.

Notes

1. According to a well-known typology drawn by Simmel, we can make a fundamental distinction, namely between the 'group made up of many' or a plural group -formally more than three, but in fact an undefined number of participants -and the 'group of two' or a dyadic group (Simmel 1964, part II, chap iii, iv and v). 2. This alternative is brilliantly summarised by Descombes (2001, 117-155) and further discussed by Benoist (2001, 19-41). 3. I take here the symbolic order, in a certain proximity to thesis from Freud and Lacan, as the social realm of customs, institutions, laws, mores, norms, practices, rituals, rules and traditions (entwined in various ways with language) into which individual human beings are thrown at birth, and configuring the fields of inter-subjective interactions. According to Lacan, the collective sym-bolic order (sometimes named 'the big Other') can be understood as roughly equivalent to the overarching 'objective spirit' of trans-individual sociolinguistic structures configuring the fields of inter-subjective interactions. In his own terms, the symbolic -through language -is the 'pact which links . . . subjects. The human action par excellence is originally founded on the existence of the symbol, namely on laws and contracts' (Lacan 2013, 230). Unfortunately, further elaboration on this point is beyond the scope of this paper. Let it suffice to note that the contributions of psychoanalysis are the most cogent and useful to complement the Sartrian concept of the third. 4. This conceptual distinction first made by Simmel (1964, part II, chap iii, iv and v) is currently adopted in social theory, for instance by [START_REF] Fischer | Turn to the Third: A Systematic Consideration of an Innovation in Social Theory[END_REF], among others. 5. If one looks to the social sciences, one finds some rich considerations about the figures and functions of the Third. Moreover, there is an ongoing debate in German social philosophy and social theory which centers on whether social theory should turn to the analysis of the role of the third party in order to conceptualize social phenomena, classically viewed from the standpoint of the 'Other'. See [START_REF] Bedorf | Dimensionen des Dritten. Sozialphilosophische Modelle zwischen Ethischem und Politischem[END_REF][START_REF] Bedorf | The Irreducible Conflict. Subjectivity, Alterity and the Third[END_REF]; [START_REF] Fischer | Turn to the Third: A Systematic Consideration of an Innovation in Social Theory[END_REF]; [START_REF] Bedorf | Theorien des Deritten Innovation in Soziologie und Sozialphilosophie[END_REF]; [START_REF] Esslinger | Die Figur des Dritten. Ein kulturwissenschaftliches Paradigma[END_REF]; [START_REF] Cooper | Dialectic and Paradox: Configurations of the Third in Modernity[END_REF]; [START_REF] Breger | Figuren der/des Dritten. Erkundungen kultureller Zwischenräume[END_REF]. See also, [START_REF] Waldenfels | Topographie des Fremden[END_REF]; [START_REF] Lindemann | The Analysis of the Borders of the Social World: A Challenge for Sociological Theory[END_REF]. Despite all this work, however, we do not find any reflection centered on the function of the third in the emergence of a 'we-perspective', neither in social theory nor in the philosophical (and social ontology) debate on the 'we'. My main concern in this paper is precisely to move beyond this impasse. Specifically, I intend to explore the role of the third in the genesis of a we-perspective in a 'group made up of many'. 6. See, for instance: [START_REF] Schilbach | Toward a Second-person Neuroscience[END_REF]; Eilan (2014); [START_REF] Carpenter | Joint Attention, Communication and Knowing Together in Infancy[END_REF]; [START_REF] Reddy | How Infants Know Minds[END_REF]; [START_REF] Darwall | The Second-Person Standpoint: Morality, Respect and Accountability[END_REF]. 7. This argument is particularly important as a critical one against the position of those, such as [START_REF] Heidegger | Being and Time[END_REF]Heidegger ( , [1928/9] /9] 2001) but also of [START_REF] Arendt | Essays in Understanding 1930-1954[END_REF], who postulate the preexistence of a 'we' in relation to individuals and believe that our 'being-with-others' (Mitsein) could be the foundation of our conscious-ness of the Other, as well as of our 'being-for-others' in general. It is clear, in fact, that the experience of being engaged in a 'we' cannot be primary; it cannot constitute an original attitude toward others since, on the contrary, it presupposes a preliminary recognition of the others. 8. Not all German classical phenomenologists confine themselves to the I-you relation in the attempt to explain the possibility of attaining a 'we-perspective'.

A great diversity of approaches can be found, for instance, in [START_REF] Reinach | Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes[END_REF] and [START_REF] Walther | Zur Ontologie der sozialen. Gemeinshaften[END_REF]. The later Husserl's phenomenology of generativity has also been read in this fashion, as an attempt to go beyond the here and now of two individuals facing each other. Among these fairly divergent approaches, Sartre seems to me the most interesting one as an analyst of the group relation. He approaches the question of how it is possible to attain a 'we-perspective' not only by two pairs of individuals facing each other but by complex social configurations disposed to merge into groups and institutions in a more systematic and detailed manner than the others, and he never hesitates to modify his earlier conceptions throughout the stages of his intellectual pro-gress, leading to the social philosophy put forward in the Critique of Dialectical Reason. 9. It is worth recalling that Sartre's Critique has largely been ignored both in social ontology and in the burgeoning field of phenomenology of sociality. Almost everyone who has written about Sartre's ideas about the 'we' mista-kenly considers the presentation in Being and Nothingness to be definitive. Sartre (1981, 13). 10. This famous distinction between the grammatically subjective 'we' and the objective 'us' deserves some elaboration. As Catalano summarises, 'Sartre agrees with Heidegger that we do indeed collaborate with others and are conscious of ourselves as a "we". He denies, however, that Heidegger's description of "being-with" indicates a fundamental structure of the human reality' (Catalano 1974, 188). In other words, Sartre denies the existence of a 'we' in the sense of an a priori, positive bond uniting human beings -an idea that he terms the 'ontological we' -but he admits that we do have an objective union with others in the world -which he terms the 'us-relation' -insofar as praxes produce artefacts or objects, through which we cooperate with each other. Therefore, as Catalano summarises, 'The "we-object" or the "us" is a true but secondary modification of our consciousness; it is a more complex form of our relation to the other through the look. The "we-subject", on the other hand, is a purely psychological apprehension of our cooperation with others' (Catalano 1974, 189). This means that I discover the 'Us', in whom I am integrated outside, in the look of a third person. On the other hand, the we-subject is experienced from within but, as such, it is a purely psychological experience.

As I show in this paper, Sartre modifies his earlier conception of the 'wesubject' in the Critique of Dialectical Reason, where he grants a limited use of the 'we-relation' in the fused-group or group-in-fusion. 11. Sartre doesn't abandon the meaning of the third as witness in the Critique, but he confines this meaning to the analysis of dyadic relationship. See Sartre ([1960] 1976, 106-109 and 114-121). 12. As Catalano, briefly remarks, 'although he will still deny the existence of a werelation, in the sense of an a priori positive bound uniting humans (and as an ontological relation), he implicitly redefines this notion in the Critique' (Catalano 1986, 34). 13. I have chosen this expression (in-group agent) to put special emphasis on the following important point: the mediating third in the Critique is a 'functional concept denoting the praxis of the individual as group member, that is communicating an identity of interest and purpose', as brilliantly expressed by Flynn (1997, 127). 14. I am well aware that it would be more appropriate to use 'it' instead of 'he' in referring to the third party to avoid gendering whenever possible. However, the non-gendering manoeuvre is complicated by the fact that Sartre refers to the third as male. Therefore, I chose 'he' when I refer to quotes from Sartre, but 'it' when I refer to the third more generally. 15. The so-called 'fused group' or 'group-in-fusion' is a newly constituted -yet still unstructured and leaderless group -which arises under the pressure of adverse circumstances (e.g. the pressures of enemy groups or the pressures of material threats such as famine, scarcity, etc. ) and realises the unification of singularities 'on the spot'. In Sartre's own terms, a 'fused group' emerges 'hot' (à chaud) and acts where previously there were only gatherings. However, through this ephemeral formation, 'everyone glimpses new, deeper, but yet to be created, social units' [START_REF] Sartre | Critique of Dialectical Reason[END_REF](Sartre [ ] 1976, 357), 357).

16. As I read Sartre, there are two ways of understanding the third party, in the Critique of Dialectical Reason. There is what I call a weak way: the one that consists of conceiving the third party as a third in-group agent. But beyond this, there is a strong way: the one that consists of positing that the third is a temporary leader, a director, or an organizer whose function is to lead the group for a while. As I will argue for here, the third in Sartre's Critique ultimately appears not only as a third in-group agent -as it has been abundantly proposed in the secondary literature on Sartre's Critique, which include the important prior contributions by [START_REF] Catalano | A Commentary on Jean-Paul Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason[END_REF], 2010[START_REF] Santoni | Sartre on Violence: Curiously Ambivalent[END_REF][START_REF] Rizk | Individus et multiplicités[END_REF][START_REF] Rizk | Comprendre Sartre[END_REF][START_REF] Flynn | Sartre, Foucault and Historical Reason[END_REF] -but also as a temporary leader or as a provisional representative of the group's aims and values. 17. Sartre clearly expresses this concept: 'His praxis is his own in himself, as the free development [. ] of the action of the entire group which is in the process of formation' [START_REF] Sartre | Critique of Dialectical Reason[END_REF](Sartre [ ] 1976, 371), 371). 18. In the group-in-fusion, this is obvious because every person is a potential sovereign who can lead the group for a while. However, identifying the third party with a leader is both an error and an exaggeration, in that it represents a function, and not a concrete figure, and most importantly, it represents a function that can be played by various actors in the group. However, this analogy contains a grain of truth in that the third party embodies the leading idea in which the group's members can have a share and which weld them together. 19. Since the example that Sartre has in mind is the French Revolution, we might think of the case of revolutionary groups. Typically, in a revolutionary group, an agitator-organiser will emerge. He is not a leader stricto sensu, nor one who commands or is in charge. But he acts as a director, a medium, and a channel for popular opinion. 20. It's worth recalling that this is 'the technical meaning of praxis as distinct from mere action: praxis is action precisely insofar as it is historical' (Catalano 1986, 36). 21. A similar argument borrowed from developmental psychology is made by [START_REF] Bedorf | The Irreducible Conflict. Subjectivity, Alterity and the Third[END_REF]. 22. At the end of the chapter entitled 'Being in Love and Hypnosis' Freud designs the graphic representation of the process of group identification that he previously defined as follows: 'A primary group [. ] is a number of individuals who have substitute one and the same object for their ego ideal and have consequently identify themselves with one another in their ego' [START_REF] Freud | Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego[END_REF], chap. VIII). 23. Le Bon (1895), [START_REF] Tarde | Les Lois De L'imitation[END_REF] and [START_REF] Freud | Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego[END_REF] can be considered as the founding fathers of crowd psychology, which they jointly established, while attempting to solve the mystery or the riddle of group formation. Another important figure in this debate is [START_REF] Mcdougall | The Group Mind[END_REF]. A historical and systematic reconstruction of their contributions can be found in [START_REF] Moscovici | The Age of Crowd. The Age of the Crowd: A Historical Treatise of Mass Psychology[END_REF]. Many other books contain accounts of the relationships between Freud, Le Bon and Tarde. See, in particular, [START_REF] Giner | Mass Society[END_REF], Adorno (1972, viii, 35). 24. It is worth recalling that all the emotional ties upon which a group depends are of the character of instincts that are inhibited in their aims.

  Sartre began to modify many of its fundamental points. In this respect, it is important to bear in mind what he himself said near the end of his life: 'What is particularly bad in L'Être et le Néant [Being and Nothingness] is the specifically social chapter, on the "we", compared to the chapters on the "you" and "others" [. . .] that part of L'Être et le Néant failed. . .', Jean-Paul

That work, which appeared in 1943

, does contain an analysis of 'Being-With (Mitsein) and the "We"' in the chapter entitled 'Concrete Relations with Others'. But shortly after he published Being and Nothingness,