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Making the Social World: The Structure of Human Civilization

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Making the Social World is a thorough explication of John Searle's theory of how status functions create our social reality.

Searle is refreshing because, unlike other philosophers, his ideas make sense even after you put away the text. Other philosophers weave a web of coherence that makes sense while they shape the alternatives of your thought through clever rhetoric. Searle is a clever writer, but he also makes sense when you apply his theories to your everyday life. For example, postmodern theory makes a lot of sense when the text you are reading limits the constraints of your thinking, but when you step outside of the text and just live you find it to be insufficient for explaining life as it is lived. Searle's discussions on duties, obligations, direction of fit, status functions, etc are easily understandable because they actually exist in the way you experience the world. These are not counter-intuitive ideas, but rather they are ideas that fit.

I also highly recommend listening to Searle's Philosophy 138 podcast from his Berkeley lectures. Listening to this course enabled me to unpack the dense and precise ideas found in Making the Social World. I found this book to be even more robust than the arguments put forth in The Construction of Social Reality. Obviously, Searle has listened to the criticisms of that work and responded with a stronger theory.

This is a work worthy to be read, considered, and applied to other texts and one's own lived experience. I highly recommend Making the Social World.

"How is it possible that we can have factual objective knowledge of a reality that is created by subjective opinions? One of the reasons I find that questions so fascinating is that it is part of a much larger question: How can we give an account of ourselves, with our peculiar human traits - as mindful, rational, speech-act performing, free-will having, social, political human beings - in a world that we know independently consist of mindless, meaningless, physical particles? How can we account for our social and mental existence in a realm of brute physical facts? In answering that question, we have to avoid postulating different ontological realms, a mental and a physical, or worse yet, a mental, a physical, and a social. We are just talking about one reality, and we have to explain how the human reality fits into that one reality." - This is how John Searle begins Making the Social World which is an extension and revision of work he began in The Construction of Social Reality.

The beauty of Searle's argument (and the beauty of philosophy in general) is that everything is connected to everything else; yet, in this book Searle does a great job at being parsimonious. This book is short where it could have been much, much longer and I applaud Searle for cutting out all the excessive qualifiers and unnecessary rhetoric. However, I think Searle intended to have a more general audience, but with some concepts such as ontology, deontology, epistemology, intentionality (basic philosophical jargon) he might have skimped a little too much. He does provide basic explanations, but the casual reader may feel a little lost, but this is not a huge issue I believe. Basically, Searle spends the first 60 or so pages of this book simply setting the stage for his argument and once he gets rolling he speeds through clearly and powerfully. The over-arching goal is to move from individual awareness or consciousness (intentionality) in order to see how we get a shared intentionality. Searle does this well.

I am already an admirer of Searle's "Biological Naturalism" (Wikipedia it) and think that this book is a nice extension of Searle's previous and copious body of work. He does an excellent job of explaining his case and fighting off detractors: "Let us constantly remind ourselves that the whole point of the creation of institutional reality is not to invest objects or people with some special status valuable in itself but to create and regulate power relationships between people. Human social reality is not just about people and objects, it is about people's activities and about power relations that not only govern but constitute those activities." In sum, he does a brilliant job of describing how "human reality fits into that one reality."

Here are a few books that relate to Searle's work or are specifically mentioned in this book: Power (The Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984, Vol. 3), Power: A Radical View, Inventing Human Rights: A History, Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and Oppression, Why We Cooperate (Boston Review Books).

Published in 2010, `Making the Social World' is John Searle's most recent work in the area of social philosophy. For those unfamiliar with the author, Searle is a leading contemporary analytic philosopher, who has made important contributions in the philosophy of language, the philosophy of the mind and the philosophy of society. The following thoughts are offered for potential readers.

From my perspective, this small text is a helpful contribution to the philosophy of society. Searle puts forth an articulate and interesting theory regarding the origin and nature of Institutional facts (e.g. money, countries and summer vacations). A wide ranging thinker Searle effortlessly blends a range of relevant notions from various areas of study.

While generally a solid work it has a few drawbacks. With regard to structure, the placement of an appendix at the outset of the book is awkward. The appendix is largely a response to criticism of his earlier text 'The Construction of Social Reality', and, while not uninteresting this type of internecine academic discussion is most naturally placed at the end of a book. As is, it gives the book a clumsy feel, especially for readers unfamiliar with the previous text. The discussion of human rights is probably the least compelling part of Searle's argument. The categorization of human rights as just another institutional fact, while consistent with naturalism does not feel quite right. The traditional view that agents possess inherent rights as the result of being human seems more convincing. As a socially defined fact human rights seem no more significant than the rules of a hockey game (not entirely unimportant up hear in Canada I should add). Searle's framing of human rights as a post-enlightenment phenomenon also seems off the mark. The Western human rights tradition is often understood to be rooted in Judaism and Christianity. And, while Searle has little sympathy for religion, his dismissal of theistically-based human rights is superficial to the point of being silly.

Overall, while a little disappointing, it is still a worthwhile read for those interested in linguistic and social philosophy. I recommended reading it in conjunction with the related course available via itunesu UC Berkley/philosophy. While this is not the text used in the course; it covers the same material. Searle is an animated speaker and many of his in-class digressions breathe life into his ideas, ideas which can seem dry in print.

If you are interested in the discussions of collective intentionality that have taken place for the last 15 years, the difference between regulative and constitutive rules, positive and negative deontic powers, status functions, and desire-independent reasons for acting, this is the right book. It is a must for any one interested in the social aspects of experience, especially the role of institutions in our lives. Hint: if you are doing scholarly work, buy both the hard copy and the Kindle version. The Kindle copy allows you to do precise searches of any terms, and the hard copy is required for citations.
Jerome Popp, Professor Emeritus, Sou. Ill. Univ. Edw.
[...]

Dr. Searle has expanded on his profound thinking regarding the primacy and specialty of language for human beings. However, I am perplexed by his incessant use of intentionality as being the canonical root for our actions. Nowhere in his text does he mention or refer to that which precedes all intention--Concerns. A human concern generates and must come before intention and utterance.

The philosophical homeostasis of "For the Sake of what?" appears missing.

Notes on corporations--There is a seminal declarative statement that grants a certain kind of life to the corporation. This is the orginal speech act that defines the status function of the entity.

The definition of a corporation commences with the declaration, "A corporation is an artificial being".

Metaphysical atomism is a visualization of "minds" swirling about "thinking" and "willing" their "conceptions" into "reality." Searle is a metaphysical atomist who wants to find a "...completely naturalistic conception of human life and society [that] is consistent with a belief in the existence of universal human rights." (198) His "naturalistic conception" is the metaphysical atom mind that "creates" reality by speaking. He claims that language "creates" society: "linguistic institutions" create "non-linguistic institutions." "All non-linguistic institutional facts are created and maintain their existence by speech acts." (122)

Metaphysical atomism is a kind of radical, anti-intellectualistic biologism that wants to reduce society to some organic natural necessities.

First, says Searle, natural animal and human life share "intentionality" (meaning: goal-direction), "a capacity of the mind, which is directed at objects." (26)

Second, intentionality results in "pre-linguistic" and "linguistic" consciousness." The first describes animal nature. The second describes human nature. Intentions have "direction of fit." Cognitive intentional states have the "downward," or "mind-to-world," fit. But "volitive" or conative states (such as desire or intention), have the upward, or "world-to-mind," fit. For animal nature, "fit" is a matter of necessity: "propositional content" determine the "conditions of satisfaction."

Third, for humans, linguistic consciousness has four "features" that are beyond "pre-linguistic." With these, humans look upward and downward on (I suppose) physical-organic reality and social reality. (1) Assertions, statements, how things are, look "downwards." (2) "Commissives," promises, look "upward." (3) Directives, orders, look "upward." (4) "Expressives," apologies, look "downward."

Fourth, however, a special feature of linguistic consciousness is "declarations," which describe something to be the case by stating that it is the case. This fifth feature, which has no prelinguistic analogue, is the "remarkable feature [that] requires a language." (69)

Fifth, his great discovery is that any "declaration" contains a commitment to the truth of the statement, so declarations induce deontology, from which human rights derive. "Deontology" means denoting rights and obligations, from Greek deon duty, from impersonal dei (it behooves; it is binding). When people make declarations, they are stating intentions, so this confers "rights, obligations, and responsibilities" (89) that exist only when they are recognized as valued for our very existence." (190) Since any declaration contains a commitment to the truth of the statement, such statements introduce deontology and so language "enables us to create social institutions." (84)

Sixth "declarations" are supposed somehow to ground loyalty, solidarity, commitment, and motivation in society. Unfortunately, Searle takes a very embarrassing excursion into social science. Social science of the 1960's formulated the place of money, power, influence, and commitments in the social system (for instance, Parsons, Talcott, Politics and Structure, New York: The Free Press, 1969). But Searle shows no familiarity with these and clucks around trying to find "deontology" in politics, which he declares derives ultimately from the use of force. (The happy cooperation of 20th-Century Germans in the liquidation of the Jews shows that force ranks way below the societal community and the fiduciary system in how information controls energy.)

Overall, his argument that human rights devolve from speech and people's honest "speech" is very weak, and not much satisfying as to anything about either language or society.

He writes in the style of academic lectures: rhetorical questions, condescending apologies, endless repetition, imaginary examples, speculative history, and lots of precious terms like "notion." His argument reduces symbolization to the act of speaking. This is a common conceit of academics, who apotheosize speaking and words. But there is much more to symbolization - that is, to societal institutions - than words. For instance, the writers of the New Testament aptly began that "In the beginning was the Word," but the word was only the beginning, because the Word was with God. This reference will horrify a "naturalist" like Searle, for whom religion is just "ignorance and error" that will soon "wither away" as scientific logic he supposes will take over (for example, in today's Global Warming Religion). Only a Liberal thinks that social agreement is sufficient to define human rights, and there are lots of excited references to the election of Obama in this book.