Dante

PHIL 202.03: Dante’s Divine Comedy, S 2011

Reading Quiz 13

Name: Monica Barfield

Due: Tuesday, April 12

Readings: John Searle, précis of The Construction of Social Reality; Law and Hetherington, “Allegory and Interference: Representation in Sociology;” HFCL’s “The Social Construction of Reality;” and Paradiso 23-26.66.

1) According to John Searle’s précis of his book The Construction of Social Reality, what is an “institutional fact,” and how is it related to a “brute fact”? What does Searle say his aim will be in discussing the relationship between these?

According to John Searle's precis of his book The Construction of Social Reality, an institutional fact is "a class of functions imposed on entities where the functions cannot be performed solely in virtue of the physical constitution of the entities, but require the collective acceptance of the imposed status and function." (pp 427). "Knowledte of these 'typical' patterns of behaviour are shared among all of the members of the society, and the constant use of these mutually anticipated exchanges is what defines the society's institutions. In other words, an institution is a widely repeated patter of interaction during which the people involved relate to one another as types." (The Social Construction of Reality, pp 4). In relation to institutional facts, brute facts, according to Searle, have a 'logical priority' over institutional facts, because there is a "requirement of systematic logical relationships among institutional facts." (pp 427).

He states, "With this apparatus in hand, I construct a general theory of institutional reality which includes a taxonomy of different types of facts. The aim is to show how it all hangs together, how a world of brute facts can give rise to intentional facts which in turn can give rise to social and institutional facts." (pp428). - This is his aim in discussing the relationship between the different fact types.

2) In the “Social Construction of...