And now for something completely different: the Background
I’m wondering if we could open up a discussion about something we haven’t looked at much yet – namely the idea of the “background.” I liked the idea in a broad sense – in so far as it draws attention to the thick layers of meaning that we all share when we communicate, which go beyond the “under-determined” information actually contained in the literal words and grammar of a sentence: The example that he gives is that the sentence “She give him her key and he opened the door,” does not specify that he opened the door with that same key, or that she gave him the key before he opened the door, or any other logical assumptions we might draw about the context (131). The background structures our consciousness and gives us an idea of what to expect from the world.
However, he then goes on to try to use the background to show how people might follow the rules without being conscious of the rules, thus allowing them to participate in the creation of institutional facts without meaning to. The example he gives is of the tribe that is raised playing baseball, and therefore follows the rules without knowing them, much like we follow the rules of grammar without realizing it. His conclusion is that “in many cases it is just wrong to assume … that our behavior matches the structure of the rules because we are unconsciously following the rules. Rather we evolve a set of dispositions that are sensitive to the rule structure” (145).
My question is: how does this matter? I see two possible options –
1.) People do in fact have a separate level of consciousness – sure, call it a “background” – in which they are able to internalize what others can only understand as rules. But what does this add if we know nothing about it? It then just becomes an “error” term – a catch-all for anything we can’t yet explain, which does nothing to advance our understanding of it.
2.) There is no separate level of “background” consciousness. All we have is a subconscious level at which we process institutional rules so quickly we don’t even think about it. Then the difference between the background and any other types of rule starts to look artificial. What is a “rule” if not just something that we have a “disposition” to follow (as in the quote from p.145)?
I’m inclined towards the second understanding, as we can often come up with the rule that we are using if we are forced to think about it.
For example, a quiz: most native English speakers would never think about, but always distinguish correctly between the words “watch” and “look at." However, we can generally also come up with the rule if pushed to do so...
posted by Kate Tennis at 10:26 PM
4 Comments:
Thanks, Kate, for bringing this up and laying it out so clearly! I was also kind of perplexed by the Background – the fact that it isn’t a conscious or an unconscious thing, but rather a mechanism that has “evolved precisely so that it will be sensitive to the rules” (146). I agree with you about the second point and I think you get to it with your watch/look at example – maybe the best way to understand the Background is something that we take for granted but could perhaps be forced to verbalize the rules if need be? But then again, Searle says the rules are never self-interpreting – yet if these rules are so innate that we are unaware of them, (though we all follow them) if we are forced to define them, is that not a form of self-interpretation?
I thought his baseball example was helpful but not terribly so, as it is a game with set rules, no matter how sensitive the player is to “specific structures of intentionality without actually being constituted by that intentionality” (142). Even when it comes to language, there are grammatical and contextual rules that go along with it so we know when someone says “I cut the cake” that she used a knife and not a lawnmower (which would actually be really awesome).
I found it more interesting when he briefly brought up the example of love as a dramatic category on page 135, as there isn’t any one set of rules or a rulebook on that subject, as far as I know. According to Searle, the Background has a manifestation in “dramatic categories that extend over sequences of events and structure those sequences into narrative shapes” (135). Searle then goes on to quote La Rochefoucauld who says “that very few people would fall in love if they never read about it” (135). What does this exactly mean? That we have this understanding of how the narrative should go, according to the way that we’ve fixed our desires and beliefs against a Background? And when it comes to the love game, does this mean that we follow certain rules, consciously or unconsciously, as if we expect it to follow a certain path?
Searl's notion of the Background is indeed interesting, although it is not entirely clear to me what he means.
Still, Kate and namalie's comments raise some points I've encountered in other readings.
Perhaps most relevant here, though, is Anthony Giddens, who explains his theory of structuration (co-constitution of agent and structure)in The Constitution of Society (1984) Many IR constructivists have had recourse to Giddens, of course.]
He writes: "While competent actors can nearly always report discursively about their intentions in, and reasons for, acting as they do, they cannot necessarily do so of their motives. Unconscious motivation is a significant feature of human conduct...The notion of practical consciousness is fundamental to structuration theory. It is that characteristic of the human agent or subject to which structuralism has been particularly blind...Only in phenomenology and ethnomethodology...do we find detailed and subtle treatments of the nature of practical consciousness...[together with ordinary language philosophy]...." (pp 6-7)
Giddens goes on to suggest that "the distinction between discursive and practical consciousness" is permeable (7).
I would suggest, perhaps cryptically, that Giddens' concerns here are rather related to those of Searle...
Anyway, I also found Searle's example of 'the social construction of' love useful. And I think namalie relates this well.
I just wanted to react to Kate's concern about the inability of 'background' in advancing our understanding and add an overall comment about Searle's writing style.
I believe it is quite unfair to label the concept as an error term/catch-all. Background advances our understanding by explaining different motives/underlying causes that impact our behavior.
Overall, Searle seems to (this is just my personal point) avoid clearly defining most of the terms he uses. (For instance, the background but we are not really sure whether it is a new level of consciousness or not.)
Moreover, the metaphors he draws from the daily life -from screwdriver to money- make it very difficult to apply his ideas in different cases. I mean, when I hear his example of key/door, I do understand his point but cannot see how it might be reflected in IR, political science - practically in something else. (maybe Jacob's point might be a good start for me and all who feels like me).
Could Background be an accumulation of all social facts, including those explicit and implicit to a given context? I would like to tag an idea onto Kate's original argument as well as the responses. How about this: Background is another set of social phenomena/facts undergirding or abutting the system/context of social phenomena under question. In this sense Background is both a learned and accepted set of norms as well as a catch-all for everything the research is NOT addressing. So Background can be defined easily as "everything else," but can also be analyzed in its own right, if the researcher choses to do so.
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