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===Social reality=== Searle extended his inquiries into observer-relative phenomena by trying to understand social reality. Searle begins by arguing collective intentionality (e.g., "we are going for a walk") is a distinct form of intentionality, not simply reducible to individual intentionality (e.g., "I am going for a walk with him and I think he thinks he is going for a walk with me and he thinks I think I am going for a walk with him and...") In ''The Construction of Social Reality'' (1995), Searle addresses the mystery of how social constructs like "baseball" or "money" can exist in a world consisting only of physical particles in fields of force. Adapting an idea by [[G.E.M. Anscombe|Elizabeth Anscombe]] in "On Brute Facts", Searle distinguishes between [[Brute fact|''brute facts'']], like the height of a mountain, and ''institutional facts'', like the score of a baseball game. Aiming at an explanation of social phenomena in terms of Anscombe's notion, he argues that society can be explained in terms of institutional facts, and institutional facts arise out of collective intentionality through constitutive rules with the logical form "X counts as Y in C". Thus, for instance, filling out a ballot counts as a vote in a polling place, getting so many votes counts as a victory in an election, getting a victory counts as being elected president in the presidential race, etc. Many sociologists, however, do not see Searle's contributions to social theory as very significant. [[Neil Gross]], for example, argues that Searle's views on society are more or less a reconstitution of the sociologist [[Émile Durkheim]]'s theories of social facts, social institutions, collective representations, and the like. Searle's ideas are thus open to the same criticisms as Durkheim's.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.scribd.com/document/22379828/Gross-Comment-on-Searle|title=Gross – Comment On Searle | PDF | Émile Durkheim | Sociology|website=Scribd}}</ref> Searle responded that Durkheim's work was worse than he had originally believed and, admitting he had not read much of Durkheim's work, said: "Because Durkheim's account seemed so impoverished I did not read any further in his work."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.scribd.com/document/22379838/Searle-Reply-to-Gross|title=Searle – Reply To Gross | PDF | Émile Durkheim | Mind|website=Scribd}}</ref> [[Steven Lukes]], however, responded to Searle's response to Gross and argued point by point against the allegations that Searle makes against Durkheim, essentially upholding Gross's argument that Searle's work bears a great resemblance to Durkheim's. Lukes attributes Searle's miscomprehension of Durkheim's work to the fact that Searle had never read Durkheim.<ref>{{Citation|last=Lukes|first=Steven|title=Searle versus Durkheim|date=2007|url=https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6104-2_9|work=Intentional Acts and Institutional Facts: Essays on John Searle's Social Ontology|pages=191–202|editor-last=Tsohatzidis|editor-first=Savas L.|series=Theory and Decision Library|place=Dordrecht|publisher=Springer Netherlands|language=en|doi=10.1007/978-1-4020-6104-2_9|isbn=978-1-4020-6104-2|access-date=2020-12-05}}</ref> ====Searle–Lawson debate<!--linked from 'Searle–Lawson debate'-->==== {{further|Social ontology}} In recent years, Searle's main interlocutor on issues of social ontology has been [[Tony Lawson]]. Although their accounts of social reality are similar, there are important differences. Lawson emphasizes the notion of social totality whereas Searle prefers to refer to institutional facts. Furthermore, Searle believes that emergence implies causal reduction whereas Lawson argues that social totalities cannot be completely explained by the causal powers of their components. Searle also places language at the foundation of the construction of social reality, while Lawson believes that community formation necessarily precedes the development of language and, therefore, there must be the possibility for non-linguistic social structure formation.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lawson |first=Tony |date=2016-12-01 |title=Comparing Conceptions of Social Ontology: Emergent Social Entities and/or Institutional Facts? |journal=Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour |language=en |volume=46 |issue=4 |pages=359–399 |doi=10.1111/jtsb.12126 |issn=1468-5914 |url=https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/254263}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Searle |first=John R. |date=2016-12-01 |title=The Limits of Emergence: Reply to Tony Lawson |journal=Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour |language=en |volume=46 |issue=4 |pages=400–412 |doi=10.1111/jtsb.12125 |issn=1468-5914}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lawson |first=Tony |date=2016-12-01 |title=Some Critical Issues in Social Ontology: Reply to John Searle |journal=Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour |language=en |volume=46 |issue=4 |pages=426–437 |doi=10.1111/jtsb.12129 |issn=1468-5914 |url=https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/265853}}</ref> The debate is ongoing and takes place additionally through regular meetings of the Centre for Social Ontology at the [[University of California, Berkeley]] and the Cambridge Social Ontology Group at the [[University of Cambridge]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.csog.econ.cam.ac.uk/events/Workshop-CISO2 |title=Workshop on Critical Issues in Social Ontology.—The Cambridge Social Ontology Group |date=2014-09-19 |website=www.csog.econ.cam.ac.uk |language=en |access-date=2017-10-11}}</ref>
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