The book The Construction of Social Reality, written by well known philosopher John R. Searle, is a Philosophical based novel that discusses the formation of our social reality such as the creation of institutional facts (facts of reality that are dependent on human intention in order to exist) and how they diverge from brute facts or facts of reality that are intrinsic and do not depend on human intent for their existence. The main arguments that are discussed throughout this book reflect on the creation of institutional facts, consciousness and intentionality, social reality and impact language has on our own perceptions.
To begin, Searle introduces the concept of institutional facts as it relates to Self-Referentiality. Simply put, many things we consider facts in our reality are dependent on those individuals and how those individuals construct reality by social facts surrounding an event. Searle references this idea in an example that if someone hoists a large cocktail party, which eventually turns violent resulting in a number of casualties, it is still considered a cocktail party; part of being a war is being thought to be a war (Searle, 34).
Another example in regards to money, is that, in order for something to be considered money, it must have a collective agreement that people consider it to be money. Searle states “If everybody always thinks that a specific object has a function imposed on it to be considered money, use it as money, treat it as money, then by definition it is money”. This is true regardless of the item that has the function to act as money, regardless if its money or not, it is considered money because it meets the definition of money “a medium for exchange”. Brute facts on the other hand, are intrinsic to nature, meaning that they do not depend on human intent in order for them to exist.
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The sun is three million miles from earth is an example of a brute fact that differentiates from institutional facts such as Donald trump is president. According to Searle, brute facts require an institution of language in order to be able to define such facts. The statement “The sun is three million miles from earth” requires an institution of language and of measurement for this statement to exist, but the fact of the sun being a specific distance from earth exists independently from any institution or explanation (Searle, 27). The whole construction of institutional facts is interesting because there is another subcategory such as agentive functions that exist based on our objective-reality.
Examples of these functions that we take for granted are bath tubs, cars, trains, etc. All these items exist in world and are comprised of materials that are found in our natural world, however with the imposed functions we give them, they become objects of our reality that eventually become blind to us. The reason I find these functions interesting, is because as it stands, our entire reality functions on the fact that these things exist and without them our entire reality could change.
When it comes to consciousness and intentionally, Searle begins by explaining his definition of fundamental ontology (State of nature or being). Fundamental ontology essentially is the building block our nature of being. Searle states “We live in a world that consists entirely of entities we find convenient, such as particles organized into systems such as mountains, rivers, crystals, molecules, babies, etc”. Searle does a great job here explaining how some of these systems develop into living systems that can eventually develop a conscious and unconscious.
As defined, Consciousness is a biological, physical, mental state and feature of higher-level nervous systems that can develop the ability of intentionality (Searle, 1995). Such as animals, we have the ability of collective intentionality. Collective intentionality is the ability for animals or humans to have a collective goal that is represented by those individuals who represent the collective whole. A pack of wolves surrounding their prey is one example that Searle uses to explain collective intentionality. Each individual wolf has a specific intent or job that must be performed in order for the collective goal of capturing the prey.
In football, the job of the wide receiver is to run a specific route to try to create space for the quarterback to be able to throw the ball. This is a great example of collective intentionality, even though the wide receiver is set on his own specific task, his ability to catch the ball thrown to him helps the team in its collective goal to score points and complete the pass. In reference to a jail setting, each Deputy is responsible for their own individual tasks such as running pods and transporting inmates. They all have a main intent of ensuring the safety and security of the facility and those inside. Collective intentionality is also recognized in the matter of conflict.
Searle states “that two men who are engaging in an argument are engaging in collective intentionality”. The reason, is even though both men are in disagreement, they are both engaging in an overall goal to be correct. One of the things that I find intriguing, is that when it comes to collective intentionality with animals, they are still able to function as a group without a structured language. The ability for animals to read social ques and body language that are being sent and received from others in order to come together for a collective agenda is truly astonishing.
Language and social reality are the next fundamental step explained by Searle, in being able to understand our own construction of reality. When looking at our own form of reality, it is important to understand that specific events or characteristics in our society have constitutive rules that guide and shape our facts about life. For example, the game of monopoly, without constitutive rules would cease to exist.
The physical brute facts of what the the game board and game pieces consist of would still be present, however the actual game/act of playing monopoly needs to have some sort of function or set of rules in order for these pieces being used in certain ways to meet the definition of playing monopoly. As far as language, Searle tries to explain his concept that the rules are language help to partially create institutional facts. What I mean by this, is that even though institutional facts can exist without full blown language, they still need some sort of representation or symbol to be able to explain such facts. Searle clearly explains this by using the statement “I am hungry”.
This statement alone, is only true because of the use of language and how to explain the intrinsic nature of being hungry. The statement “I am hungry” does not have any physical effect on the state of hunger. This relates to facts Searle explains as language-independent and language-dependent facts. For something to exist as a language-independent fact, it does not need to depend on any structural language. Likewise, language-dependent facts fall dependent on the need for structures of language in order to exist in our reality (Searle, 61).
All these concepts represented by Searle are a great introduction into how we are able to understand the construction of our own social reality. By learning the difference between institutional and brute facts, we are able to distinguish objects and institutions within our society that solely exist because of their dependency for us to accept them as real and those that exist because of their intrinsic nature.
Additionally, Searle’s explanation of intentionality and consciousness can open up the eyes as to why people may do certain things, good or bad, for the greater collective agenda. Lastly, Searle’s topic of language and how it effects our own reality is very intriguing considering the fact that even if some intrinsic feature such as the moon being “x” miles away from the earth can be intrinsic in nature but non existent without the linguistic elements to be able to explain it.
One element of language that was not explained, was how language effects our consciousness. If we are not able to put linguistic markers/elements on intrinsic facts as a way to explain them, then how does that effect the way we think and perceive the world around us? I think that this topic of discussion would have helped relate how we associate our state of consciousness with language and help understand how much power language has when interpreting our reality.
Overall, The Construction of Social Reality was a very interesting read as far as learning different ways to piece together parts of our lives that we take for granted and what in our reality is truly real.
