The Construction of Social Reality

1. Social Reality is Constructed Through Agreement

There are portions of the real world, objective facts in the world, that are only facts by human agreement.

Objective facts by agreement. Searle argues that much of what we consider real in our social lives—money, property, marriage, governments—exists only because we collectively agree that it does. These "institutional facts" are distinct from "brute facts," which exist independently of human opinion, like the chemical composition of water or the height of Mount Everest. This dependence on collective belief doesn't make social reality any less real or objective; it simply highlights its unique foundation.

Metaphysical burden. The complexity of social reality is often invisible, yet it shapes our daily interactions. Consider a simple act like ordering a beer in a cafe: it involves a vast, unseen network of property rights, governmental regulations, and cultural norms. We navigate this complex web effortlessly, often unaware of the intricate structure that underpins it.

Invisibility and analysis. The invisibility of social structures poses a challenge for analysis. Neither internal phenomenological descriptions nor external behaviorist accounts are sufficient. Searle advocates for a first-person intentionalistic vocabulary to reveal the elementary features of social ontology, later grounding this in the "Background" of nonconscious capacities.

2. Institutional Facts Require Collective Intentionality

Collective intentionality is a biologically primitive phenomenon that cannot be reduced to or eliminated in favor of something else.

"We" intentionality. Searle emphasizes that collective intentionality, the capacity to share beliefs, desires, and intentions, is fundamental to social facts. It's not merely the sum of individual intentions but a primitive phenomenon. Examples include a football team executing a play or two people pushing a car together.

Irreducible collectivity. Attempts to reduce collective intentionality to individual intentionality plus mutual beliefs fail to capture the sense of doing something together. The crucial element is a shared sense of purpose, where individual intentions are derived from the collective one. This "we-consciousness" is essential for understanding social facts.

Social vs. institutional facts. While all institutional facts are social facts, not all social facts are institutional. Hyenas hunting a lion is a social fact involving collective intentionality, but it doesn't require the complex institutional structures of money or government. Institutional facts are a special subclass that depend on human institutions.

3. Language is Constitutive of Institutional Reality

Language seems to be essential not only to represent these facts to ourselves; but in a way that we will have to explain, the linguistic forms in question are partly constitutive of the facts.

Words shape reality. Searle argues that language is not just a tool for describing social reality but is partly constitutive of it. Institutional facts like money, marriage, and property require language because the concepts themselves are embedded in linguistic frameworks. This is not to say that social facts in general require language, but that institutional facts do.

Language-dependent thoughts. The thoughts that are constitutive of institutional facts are language-dependent. Unlike the desire for a bone, which a dog can experience without language, the belief that something is money requires a linguistic system for representing and counting value. This is because the status function assigned to money cannot be fulfilled without collective agreement, which requires a shared system of symbols.

The X counts as Y. The move from X to Y in the creation of institutional facts is inherently linguistic, even when it doesn't appear to be. The Y term assigns a new status that the X term doesn't already possess, and this new status requires markers, because there isn't anything else there.

4. Constitutive Rules Form the Basis of Social Institutions

Institutional facts exist only within systems of constitutive rules.

Rules create possibilities. Searle distinguishes between regulative rules, which govern pre-existing activities (like driving on the right side of the road), and constitutive rules, which create the very possibility of certain activities (like the rules of chess). Institutional facts exist only within systems of constitutive rules. These rules often take the form "X counts as Y in context C."

The "counts as" locution. The "counts as" locution is crucial because it signifies the imposition of a status to which a function is attached through collective intentionality. This status and its accompanying function go beyond the sheer physical features of the object. The application of the constitutive rule introduces a new status that the object doesn't already have.

Normative status. When the imposition of a status function becomes general policy, the formula "X counts as Y in C" acquires a normative status, becoming a constitutive rule. This creates the possibility of abuses that couldn't exist without the rule, such as counterfeit money or malpractice.

5. Status Functions Assign New Powers

Collective intentionality assigns a new status to some phenomenon, where that status has an accompanying function that cannot be performed solely in virtue of the intrinsic physical features of the phenomenon in question.

Beyond physical features. The key element in creating institutional facts is the imposition of a collectively recognized status to which a function is attached. These "status functions" cannot be performed solely by virtue of physical structure. For example, paper currency functions as money not because of its material composition but because we collectively agree to accept it as such.

The Y term. The Y term in the formula "X counts as Y in C" must assign some new status that the entities named by the X term don't already have. This new status must be such that human agreement, acceptance, and other forms of collective intentionality are necessary and sufficient to create it.

Examples of status functions:

• A piece of paper (X) counts as money (Y) in the United States (C)
• A graduate of law school (X) counts as an attorney (Y) after passing the bar exam (C)
• Certain noises in a ceremony (X) count as getting married (Y) in a church (C)

6. Background Abilities Enable Institutional Functioning

Intentional states function only given a set of Background capacities that do not themselves consist in intentional phenomena.

Beyond conscious rules. Searle addresses the question of how constitutive rules can play a causal role in behavior when people are often unaware of them. He rejects the idea of unconscious rule-following, arguing instead for the concept of the "Background."

Non-intentional capacities. The Background is the set of non-intentional or pre-intentional capacities that enable intentional states to function. These capacities include abilities, dispositions, tendencies, and causal structures. They are not themselves intentional phenomena but are necessary for intentionality to operate.

Examples of Background functions:

• Enabling linguistic interpretation
• Enabling perceptual interpretation
• Structuring consciousness
• Providing narrative or dramatic shape to experiences
• Disposing us to certain behaviors

7. Realism is a Necessary Presupposition for Intelligibility

The world (or alternatively, reality or the universe) exists independently of our representations of it.

External realism defined. Searle defends "external realism" (ER), the view that the world exists independently of our representations of it. This means that even if we had never existed, most of the world would remain unaffected. ER is an ontological claim, not a semantic or epistemic one.

Distinguishing realism. It's important to distinguish realism from other views with which it's often confused. Realism is not a theory of truth, nor does it imply any particular theory of knowledge or language. It simply asserts the existence of a representation-independent reality.

Transcendental argument. Searle offers a "transcendental" argument for ER, showing that it's a necessary presupposition for intelligibility. When we attempt to communicate in a public language, we must presuppose a publicly accessible reality that exists independently of our representations.

8. Truth is Correspondence to Representation-Independent Facts

The statement will be true or false depending on whether things in the world really are the way the statement says they are.

Accuracy of representation. Searle defends the correspondence theory of truth, arguing that a statement is true if and only if it corresponds to the facts. This means that true statements accurately represent how things are in the world.

Disquotation and correspondence. The disquotational criterion of truth, which states that "s is true if and only if p," implies the correspondence theory. The right-hand side of a T sentence specifies a condition that is satisfied if and only if the sentence on the left-hand side is true, and this condition is what we call a "fact."

Facts and statements. Facts are not linguistic entities but rather conditions in the world that satisfy the truth conditions expressed by statements. The correspondence theory is not an attempt to define "true" without using other semantic notions but rather to explain the relationship between true statements and the world.

Last updated: April 6, 2025