The CONSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL REALITY

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Summary: Searle's Attempt to Naturalize the Status Quo
Review: "Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

--Tennyson, "The Charge of the Light Brigade"

The above epigraph is a particularly aggrandized yet fatal example of what John R. Searle would consider a "[c]ollective intentionality [that] generate[s] agentive functions as easily as individual intentionality" (39). The specific historical context is the Crimean War, which plausibly constitutes an "institutional fact" because both the individuals that comprise "the six hundred"-a British cavalry brigade-and those against whom the brigade mounts the offensive-entrenched Russian soldiers manning artillery batteries-acknowledge a state of war and comport themselves accordingly. Thus both the British light brigade and the Russian artillerymen share among themselves "a sense of doing (wanting, believing, etc.) something together, and the individual intentionality that each person has is derived from the collective intentionality that they share" (24-25). Each member of the light brigade is grimly-and, in many cases, fatally-determined to storm the Russians' position. Moreover, each member remains uncritical of and subordinate to the marching orders, despite the fact that some are aware that these orders resulted from botched communication. Thus the end that the collective intention is to effect is unrealizable, and yet the six hundred nevertheless execute their orders to the letter.

I use the example of Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade" to illustrate the puzzling and potentially unsettling implications of Searle's taxonomy of the constitutive features of social reality. That is, if the six hundred's successful execution of the offensive is nearly impossible (as it proves to be), then what is its collective intention exactly? Or, differently phrased, what is the true telos of the six hundred's collective endeavor? Textual evidence suggests that Tennyson intended his poem to be a paean to the uncritical devotion to duty that the six hundred demonstrated in the face of impossible odds, but is this a satisfactory explanation? It would thus imply that the true telos of the six hundred is to instantiate an abstraction, an abstraction that is moreover both implicitly Statist and imperial (the expansion, consolidation and maintenance of Britain's colonial holdings).

Searle's claim that in cooperative endeavors one's individual intentionality derives from, and is therefore bound up in, collective intentionality appears to limit artificially her individual intentionality and agency, especially as concerns her critical function. For instance, there is plenty of which to be critical about the circumstances surrounding "The Charge of the Light Brigade," and yet not one among the six hundred broke ranks to save himself from slaughter. In fact, the very opportunity to exercise one's critical function is foreclosed by some trumping principle of duty: "Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die." Therefore, the unwavering and uncritical devotion to duty can be said to be a "constitutive rule" of war in Searle's nomenclature. Specifically, rank and the chain of command are institutional facts of war, and as such can "exist only within a system of constitutive rules" (28). Thus, should the six hundred violate the call to duty and desert the battlefield, the ontology of the war wold become seriously jeopardized, for what are rules without individuals to enact and to obey them? And if the facticity of war depends upon its systemic cohesion, which is a system of constitutive rules, then to refuse to obey those rules is to refuse war's institutional facticity.

Consequently, I find Searle's ostensibly objective and descriptive approach-an approach that I have deduced from his tone and prose style-to be quite deceptive, because the bulk of his observations rely more on hegemonic "givens" than scientific objectivity.

Rating:
Summary: Searle's Most Important Work. A Must Read!
Review: I'm afraid it's the reviewer from Paris who just doesn't get it. Searle quite clearly acknowledges that the concept of "mountain" in mind-dependent or socially constructed. However what he is at pains to point out is that the entity which our concept "mountain" describes is mind-independent.

This is a beautifully written book, lucid, clear with a light flowing prose style - so different from many of the writings it critiques. You don't necessarily have to agree with Searle to admire this book - what is so admirable is that he states his position with such clarity that there is at least scope for rational agreement/disagreement.

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Summary: Seriously in-depth critical analysis of social reality
Review: John Searle presents a critical analysis of the structure of social reality. In his theory of the mind he illustrates "how it all hangs together". He describes a world of reality where complex structure is invisible, and in which certain things only exist because we believe them to exist.

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Summary: Clear Treatment of Difficult Issues
Review: Searle demonstrates once again why he is one of our best thinkers. Confronting head-on the postmodern claim that reality and truth are social constructs, Searle demolishes (deconstructs?) this claim and illustrates just how foolish and unexamined it is. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the ideas that have taken the humanities and higher education to a new nadir--which should be everyone. This is a great book.

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Summary: hONEST BUT MISGUIDED
Review: Searle seems to have it all worked out. Mountains would exist irrespective of whether we were here or not.. or at least so he argues. But what is a mountain other than a definition? Where do mountans begin and end, how do we decide what is and what is not a mountain? It is relative! The world may exist whether we were here or not, but it is man who gives it meaning. In that sense the world IS a social construction. Searle just doesn't get it.

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Summary: Realism Defended
Review: This book is perhaps Searle's most rigorous and complex effort at philosophizing, and yet one of his most readable. I think we are indebted to his research assistant for the clarity of locution and punctuation -- two areas where Searle can be vulnerable. This book also uses many concepts discussed at length in two of his other books: "Speech Acts" and "Intentionality." Having read these two other books, while definitely helpful, is not necessary, as Searle is kind enough to describe his meanings and references as he goes along. And he goes along at quite a rapid clip. This is, moreover, one of those books one cannot afford to skip a sentence without serious impairment of further understanding.

With these caveats in mind, I highly recommend this tour of Searle's defense of naive realism in modern analytic terms. He is highly analytic, and builds quite a fortress that he is pained to defend against criticisms of circularity. Nowhere is this charge more appropriate than in his defense of language as simultaneously being an "institutional" and "brute" fact. Each reader will have to decide whether or not he succeeds, but, if he has failed, it is not for a lack of effort.

Of all Searle's books, this is the one I enjoyed the most. Searle is an excellent analytic philosopher, but a grammarian he's not. His lack of grammatical discipline usually interferes with his philosophizing and frequently plagues his other works, but is completely remedied in this book. It's not an "elegant" work, by any means, but it is clear, concise, and comprehensible. His arguments are thoroughly explained, developed, and explored, so that even a novice could follow his impeccable logic. And, there are an abundance of arguments, new linguistic devices, and formulations and reformulation of his ideas to sustain his central motif: Objective reality is objectively real.

This is a great display of analytic thoroughness, coupled with a generous amplification of his ideas. A truly "fun" read.

Rating:
Summary: A Work of Art
Review: Whether you agree with Searle or not, I think it would be hard to disagree with the fact that this is an extremely well written and lucid work on a mordern issue that has rarely found clear expression. This work is to be read and treasured by all lovers of philosophy, especially to those with a bent in epistemology. Searle is a tremendous communicator and, if you are willing to come to the book with and "open mind", you will find his arguments both challenging and stimulating. Do miss out on this great work!