Hegemony, Language, and Social Reality

Thanks to CCR and Bea for starting us off with their engaging discussion. To address a few of your points, Bea, I noticed that you in particular raised the notion of cultural relativism and hegemony in regards to Searle’s notion of social reality, which I thought was interesting. You’re right that Searle doesn’t really address either of these issues… yet, while they are interesting topics to disucss, I don’t feel that they are necessary for Searle’s thesis. For example, you ask “does Searle mean that there is an "overarching" social reality, a "majority" social reality (e.g., public nudity is for the most part frowned upon), or several plural social realities?” From my reading of Searle, I understood that he does believe in an external reality that exists independently of our representations of it. Yet, it is only natural that our representations of it vary (ie, by culture), thus social realities and institutions are diverse and pluralistic, even though there is a more overarching external reality.

A brief diversion to reply to CCR's question into the permanence or nonpermanence of external reality… I agree that even brute facts can change, since physical “facts” are not always constant. For example, what is at one moment ice can at the next moment be water. Yet, it is still H2O. So, while the facts within an external reality can change, even brute facts, and in the longue duree even the components of the external reality can change (such as mountains eroding), the notion of the external reality remains constant. That is, while the epistemic facts may change, the ontology of an external reality stays the same. I think the best answer to your question is on page 155 when Searle states that external realism “does not say how things are but only that there is a way that they are.”

Getting back to Bea’s original thoughts on cultural relativism and hegemony… I agree that more powerful individuals/states/schools of thought may play a part in the creation of certain institutions and institutional facts… but I believe that social reality can be localized enough for different peoples and cultures to create their own institutions and institutional facts by which they live. In other words, individuals have some agency in creating their own social reality by deciding what they do or do not subscribe to. Some things are of course easier to think consciously about than others… for example, it is easier to conclude that one does not believe in marriage and live one’s life without being married than it is to say, not believe in language or even money. But, because social reality requires collective intentionality, I think that it avoids being subsumed by hegemony.

You raise an interesting point about language as well, and its connection to hegemony. But again, I think it is the notion or ontology of language as a structure of symbols that matters most to Searle, not the specifics of one language being dominant over another. The same is true for written and spoken language… the mode of the communication of words does not matter so much to Searle as the fact that there exists a system of symbols that can transform the X to the Y. I agree with you however Bea, that a more nuanced discussion by Searle addressing spoken v. written language would have been both helpful and interesting.

Thanks!