Editing John Searle (section)

====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>