Scientific Realism
This week, Searle and Bhaskar bridge the gap between the physical and the social worlds, grounding social facts in basic biological phenomenon (Searle) and arguing that the natural and social share the same structure of knowledge (Bhaskar). In doing so, both seek to combat theories of knowledge invoking social atomism, positivism and hermeneutics. The following questions primarily focus on Searle, and are meant to jump start discussion. Ben is also commenting this week and will probably shed light on some of the point I leave aside.:
1. What are the boundaries of a social fact? How clear must the “we intends” align with one another? How much room is there for dissention – or can dissention be flexibly inserted into facts? Are Searle’s examples of money, marriage, etc easy cases; in other words, is it more difficult to apply his concepts of collectivity and status function to contested facts (especially given the degrees he acknowledges between epistemologically objective facts and epistemologically subjective judgments?
2. Is individual intentionality purely derived from the collective intentionality when people are embedded within a social institution (24) or is it also meshed with with other “collective intentionality” or combined with sparks of individual consciousness shaping the character of being? How does individual intentionality interact with collective intentionality, and what does this mean, if anything, for the objectivity of social facts?
3. It seems that Searle’s basic hypothesis aimed at accounting for the creation and maintenance of social institutions (as articulated on pg. 111) does not adequately account for the differences between acceptance, acknowledgement, recognition and acts of "going along with". Is “going along with”, which can involve passivity, enough for “we intend”ness?
4. In the beginning of his account, Searle distinguishes between rules and conventions, arguing that for example the fact that the king is larger than a pawn is convention (which involves arbitrariness) rather than rule. Is this distinction exaggerated or even false? When should tradition or social norms be chalked up to the former or the later?
1. What are the boundaries of a social fact? How clear must the “we intends” align with one another? How much room is there for dissention – or can dissention be flexibly inserted into facts? Are Searle’s examples of money, marriage, etc easy cases; in other words, is it more difficult to apply his concepts of collectivity and status function to contested facts (especially given the degrees he acknowledges between epistemologically objective facts and epistemologically subjective judgments?
2. Is individual intentionality purely derived from the collective intentionality when people are embedded within a social institution (24) or is it also meshed with with other “collective intentionality” or combined with sparks of individual consciousness shaping the character of being? How does individual intentionality interact with collective intentionality, and what does this mean, if anything, for the objectivity of social facts?
3. It seems that Searle’s basic hypothesis aimed at accounting for the creation and maintenance of social institutions (as articulated on pg. 111) does not adequately account for the differences between acceptance, acknowledgement, recognition and acts of "going along with". Is “going along with”, which can involve passivity, enough for “we intend”ness?
4. In the beginning of his account, Searle distinguishes between rules and conventions, arguing that for example the fact that the king is larger than a pawn is convention (which involves arbitrariness) rather than rule. Is this distinction exaggerated or even false? When should tradition or social norms be chalked up to the former or the later?
posted by Anonymous at 5:09 AM
1 Comments:
Well, it appears that we are experiencing some nostalgic longing for Sir Karl this week, given the number of our cohort that are hoping to inflict gaping wounds on Searle by proving a single iteration of his theories false or falsifying his depiction of the LA riots. So, here I am on page 90, and issuing as I do from a third-world state in which a police force and army which were more than capable of deploying lethal force on a widespread scale (I am referring here to South Africa's biological and nuclear weapons programs, as well as the handy positioning of a ground-attack bomber squadron just a few miles from the infamous Soweto Riots of 1976), and I don't really see what point Neerada and Ned are making (except, of course, in terms of establishing a few social facts about themselves). So, 55 people were killed in LA. So, thousands were arrested. All Searle's point requires is that there were far more more rioters who went on their way uncontested than there were rioters directly confronted by the police. This was clearly not a Bloody Sunday or Amritsar massacre! I append a quote from CNN:
"Protesters also clashed with police outside Parker Center, the LAPD's headquarters downtown, amid chants of "No justice, no peace."
"We are going to tear this motherf---er down right here! That building's gonna come down!" one demonstrator yelled.
"They were throwing things at us, and all we could do was stand there and take it," LAPD Sgt. Greg Dust said.
"It was worse than being in Vietnam," he said. "At least in Vietnam, I could shoot back."
So, what's the problem with Searle, guys? His point about the breakdown of the enforcement of institutional frameworks in hte face of collective repudiation of the social facts on which it rests still holds for me. Indeed, a third world perspective should leave one desperate to believe him rather than discount his views.
I have a question of my own, though, to show that I am not Searle's bitch, or anything. It veers more towards Jacob's territory, and is: can one conceive of productive (I prefer consequential) action without recourse to functionable attribution? Put another way: Searle gives "the heart pumps blood" as an example of an intrinsic fact. But in truth, 'pumping blood' is a secondary -consequence- of regular muscular contraction, which is what the heart is doing (and only because, in aggregate, many myocardial fibres are all contracting synchronously). The minute one links the action of contraction to an exterior object or change in state, methinks, one is making a functionable attribution.
What's the point? Well, and back to Jacob here, is the distinction between institutional and brute fact such that very, very few things - and certainly no systematic interactions - can be thought of as brute?
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