Comment on John Searle’s The Construction of Social Reality

Abstract: This comment deals with some basic elements Searle uses in order to construct social reality, i.e. togetherness, we-intentionality and the distinction between institutional and brute facts. The commentator argues that Searle’s theory tends to a partial biologism because lacking a sufficient concept of embodiment. Consequently ‘pre-institutional facts’ such as eating, copulating, working or torturing are systematically underdetermined. On the deontic level the theory relies on natural processes of conventional power. So the distinction between factual acceptance and acceptability is blurred by a sort of conformism, and one neglects the status of dissidents and victims whose belonging to the predominant ‘we’ remains highly dubious.

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Comment on John Searle’s The Construction of Social Reality ; volume:20 ; number:2 ; year:1998 ; pages:159-165 ; extent:7 ; Analyse & Kritik ; 20, Heft 2 (1998), 159-165 (gesamt 7)

Contributors, Places and Time

• Creator: Waldenfels, Bernhard

Further information

• DOI: 10.1515/auk-1998-0202
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2404171612575.180070112472
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 14.08.2025, 10:56 AM CEST