Searle, John

Freedom and Neurobiology: Reflections on Free Will, Language, and Political Power (Columbia Themes in Philosophy)

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Musings on Free Will
Superficial
Searle finally writes about man as "zoon politikon"

Freedom and Neurobiology: Reflections on Free Will, Language, and Political Power (Columbia Themes in Philosophy)
John Searle
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0231137524

Book Description

Our self-conception derives mostly from our own experience. We believe ourselves to be conscious, rational, social, ethical, language-using, political agents who possess free will. Yet we know we exist in a universe that consists of mindless, meaningless, unfree, nonrational, brute physical particles. How can we resolve the conflict between these two visions?<BR> <BR>In Freedom and Neurobiology, the philosopher John Searle discusses the possibility of free will within the context of contemporary neurobiology. He begins by explaining the relationship between human reality and the more fundamental reality as described by physics and chemistry. Then he proposes a neurobiological resolution to the problem by demonstrating how various conceptions of free will have different consequences for the neurobiology of consciousness.

In the second half of the book, Searle applies his theory of social reality to the problem of political power, explaining the role of language in the formation of our political reality. The institutional structures that organize, empower, and regulate our lives-money, property, marriage, government-consist in the assignment and collective acceptance of certain statuses to objects and people. Whether it is the president of the United States, a twenty-dollar bill, or private property, these entities perform functions as determined by their status in our institutional reality. Searle focuses on the political powers that exist within these systems of status functions and the way in which language constitutes them.

Searle argues that consciousness and rationality are crucial to our existence and that they are the result of the biological evolution of our species. He addresses the problem of free will within the context of a neurobiological conception of consciousness and rationality, and he addresses the problem of political power within the context of this analysis.

A clear and concise contribution to the free-will debate and the study of cognition, Freedom and Neurobiology is essential reading for students and scholars of the philosophy of mind.

Customer Reviews:

Musings on Free Will.......2007-05-13

These essays are a low-voltage rehash of ideas set out in Searle's earlier books, where his one-mind concept of consciousness is set out much more lucidly. His musings on Free Will lack focus and clarity and the author ends up without taking a clear position on a topic where his brilliant philosophical studies should have allowed him to enlighten his readers.

Superficial.......2007-03-08

You'd expect a book with this title to actually have some neurobiology in it, but you'd be disappointed. This slim volume consists of two diffuse philosophical essays, one about free will, and the other about political power. Both are simplistic, in my view, and don't bring any new ideas to the table. The essay on free will was the most interesting, but despite the book's title, the author doesn't bring in any neurobiology. Instead he basically says that neurobiology should be involved, and possibly quantum mechanical randomness, because that's the only nondeterministic mechanism he can think of that might be related to the nondeterminism of free will. That particular idea is explored much more deeply in Roger Penrose's book "The Emperor's New Mind," which despite its flaws, is a much deeper and more solid book.

Searle finally writes about man as "zoon politikon".......2006-12-24

This book is 3 chapters: an intro chapter, a chapter on free will & neurobiology, and a chapter on political power. The book was previously just two lectures Searle gave in 2001 at Sorbonne. Eventually, Searle's editor published these two lectures in France without Searle's involvement leading Searle to end a quaint story saying, "It is the first time in my life that I published a book I did not know that I had written" (pg. 2). Searle added the intro chapter for his edition. Although the first essay on free will is meager progress on what Searle says elsewhere (see Searle's Rationality in Action (Jean Nicod Lectures)), the 2nd chapter on political power is a promising addition to what Searle has already hinted at in The Construction of Social Reality and Mind, Language, and Society : Philosophy in the Real World (he admits this fact, see pg. 33).

SEARLE ON FREE WILL & NEUROBIOLOGY
Searle puts in the title "Reflections" because he admits to not giving answers, especially to the problem of free will. Instead Searle wants to muse: "I cannot give you a solution to the problem of free will, but I hope to be at least able to state the problem in a precise enough form so that we can see what possible solutions would look like (pg. 31).
Searle is frustrated by free will and neurobiology because free will seems to be a phenomenological experience that is irreducible to epiphenomena, yet how can we be free to will when conscious states are realized in neurological states which are "completely deterministic"? (pg. 38 see all 40). But the notion of the freedom of the will does not go away, according to Searle, "if you say to the waiter `Look, I am a determinist - che sará sará, I'll just wait and see what I order,' that refusal to exercise free will is only intelligible to you as one of your actions if you take it to be an exercise of your free will" (pg. 43).
At this point Searle offers 2 hypotheses: (1) free will is an illusion and the deterministic physical laws which govern our neurons also govern consciousness i.e. epiphenomenalism; (2) "we have to suppose that the logical features of volitional consciousness of the entire system have effects on the elements on the system. This is true even though the system is composed entirely of the elements" (pg. 63). Thus, "the passage from one state to the next is explained by the rational thought processes of the initial state of neurons/consciousness. At any instant the total state of consciousness is fixed by the behavior of the neurons, but from on instant to the next the total state of the system is not causally sufficient to determine the next state. Free will, if it exists at all, is a phenomenon in time" (pg. 65). Searle's struggle to make free will somehow a feature (is "feature the right word, Searle sometimes says "realized" but we might want to ask for clarity) of neurophysiology has been on difficult grounds since at least Thomas Nagel wrote that we can know everything about a bat except what it is like to be a bat (see "What is it like to be a bat?" in Nagel's book Mortal Questions (Canto)). Searle wants "Hypothesis 2" to be correct but he concludes that it is currently "a mess" (pg. 77).

SEARLE ON DEONTIC POWER
Before this essay, Searle never had anything to say about politics (this is not completely true: see little-known book "The campus war; a sympathetic look at the university in agony). Searle says, "When I was an undergraduate, it was widely believed that political philosophy was dead" (pg. 13). However, after writing about institutional reality as collective intentionality in "The Construction of Social Reality" he decided that this chapter "Social Ontology and Political Power" would apply his linguistic account of institutional reality to the "special problem of political power" (pg. 33).
Searle begins by saying that "our tradition of political philosophy" has been "unsatisfying" because it doesn't ask the proper questions first: instead of "What is a just society" we should ask "What is a society in the first place?" (pg. 80) Searle describes a group of numbered and ordered propositions which develop through his essay; I will quote them here in truncated form (hopefully without losing meaningfulness).
(1) All political power is a matter of social functions, and for that reason all political power is deontic power (2) Because all political power is a matter of status functions, all political power, though exercised from above, comes from below (3) Even though the individual is the source of all political power, by his or her ability to engage in collective intentionality; all the same, the individual, typically, feels powerless (4) The system of political status functions works at least in part because recognized deontic powers provide desire-independent reasons for action (5) It is a consequence...that there is a distinction between political power and political leadership (6) Because political powers are matters of status functions they are, in large part, linguistically constituted (7) In order for a society to have a political reality it needs several other distinguishing features:...a distinction between the public and the private sphere with the political as part of the public sphere,...the existence of nonviolent group conflicts, and...group conflicts must be over social goods within a structure of deontology (8) A monopoly on armed violence is an essential presupposition of government.

Anyone serious about studying the extensions of Searle's thought must buy this book primarily for the brief essay on political philosophy. His essay on free will, Searle admits, is largely conceptually at an impasse.

Neuroscience and Philosophy: Brain, Mind, and Language

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science intersecting with philosophy

Neuroscience and Philosophy: Brain, Mind, and Language
Maxwell Bennett , Daniel Dennett , Peter Hacker , and John Searle
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0231140444

Customer Reviews:

science intersecting with philosophy.......2007-06-01

Philosophy is one of the oldest intellectual pursuits. Yet it is only in very recent times that science is starting to provide an underpinning. The status of this is argued in this book. With some of the latest results and trends in neuroscience as the talking point.

The book is formatted with 2 scientists providing views on consciousness, as gleaned from experiments. While the contrary opinions are given by 2 philosophers. With the scientists then given space to issue a reply.

Whatever your own positions on all this, perhaps you can appreciate the excitement in the air. For the first time, philosophy has hard experimental observations to cogit over. And the problem of consciousness is surely one of the fundamental unknowns in science.

The Rediscovery of the Mind (Representation and Mind)

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Excellent Highly-Accessible Polemic
Clearest monograph EVER!!!
The study of the mind is the study of consciousness.
state of analytic philosophy of mind at the end of century
A Polished Study

The Rediscovery of the Mind (Representation and Mind)
John R. Searle
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 026269154X

Book Description

In this major new work, John Searle launches a formidable attack on current orthodoxies in the philosophy of mind. More than anything else, he argues, it is the neglect of consciousness that results in so much barrenness and sterility in psychology, the philosophy of mind, and cognitive science: there can be no study of mind that leaves out consciousness. What is going on in the brain is neurophysiological processes and consciousness and nothing more - no rule following, no mental information processing or mental models, no language of thought, and no universal grammar. Mental events are themselves features of the brain, "like liquidity is a feature of water."

Beginning with a spirited discussion of what's wrong with the philosophy of mind, Searle characterizes and refutes the philosophical tradition of materialism. But he does not embrace dualism. All these "isms" are mistaken, he insists. Once you start counting types of substance you are on the wrong track, whether you stop at one or two. In four chapters that constitute the heart of his argument, Searle elaborates a theory of consciousness and its relation to our overall scientific world view and to unconscious mental phenomena. He concludes with a criticism of cognitive science and a proposal for an approach to studying the mind that emphasizes the centrality of consciousness to any account of mental functioning.

In his characteristically direct style, punctuated with persuasive examples, Searle identifies the very terminology of the field as the main source of truth. He observes that it is a mistake to suppose that the ontology of the mental is objective and to suppose that the methodology of a science of the mind must concern itself only with objectively observable behavior; that it is also a mistake to suppose that we know of the existence of mental phenomena in others only by observing their behavior; that behavior or causal relations to behavior are not essential to the existence of mental phenomena; and that it is inconsistent with what we know about the universe and our place in it to suppose that everything is knowable by us.

John R. Searle is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent Highly-Accessible Polemic.......2005-06-07

What a wonderful book! I had tried to access philosophy of mind through David Chalmers and Roger Penrose to no avail. Talk about arcane and inane philosophy! Then, I decided I might try something "lighter." What a difference Searle's dense, but clear, ideas make! This book is a great place to begin (or end) one's enquiring into the philosophy of mind, and a treasure trove of so much that is intuitive. So much in the field of conscious is counterintuitive that it is refreshing to read someone who subscribes to one's intuitive beliefs.

First, like most philosophically-minded individuals, I like to think philosophy of the mind is not so arcane and inaccessible that we ordinary individuals can't get it, e.g., Penrose, Chalmers, et al. At least Searle treats the reader like educated adults without unnecessary obfuscation. Don't misunderstand me: This is dense reading, and hardly a sentence passes without something important being claimed. But, rather than being unintelligible, it is wholly intelligible. For example, Chalmers tries to explain supervenience over 40 pages, Searle explains in one paragraph. Not simple, but clear and unadulterated exposition.

Second, some other readers must have omitted the Preface and First Chapter. This book is intentionally polemical; Searle makes it clear from the outset. He adamantly opposes some of the philosophical and psychological paradigms currently in cognitive science, and he addresses those problems in the first few chapters (and throughout the book). He opposes dualism and materialism of all sorts and admits that he is a "naive naturalist," whatever that is. His arguments are often contentious, as he admits up front. But as tendentious as he is -- there's a lot riding on the premises and conclusions of others, so in the end he has to highly contentious. Fortunately, he's also persuasive.

Third, as a "naive materialist," Searle argues that the simultaneous firing of neurons and existent mental states (hence the phenomenon "consciousness" is irreducible to anything further) are causally interchangeable, because they are the same phenomenon. Ergo, consciousness is not epiphenomenally, nor occurrently, nor simultaneously, but epistemically, empirically, and ontologically foundational (each a different property of the same phenomenon). This is an important, and liberating, concept, forcefully argued throughout the book. What's inimical about all the other concepts Searle fights is their use of the homunuclus fallacy and their anthropomorphizing of physical processes.

Fourth, he make the claim for a number of other intuitive, contra counterintuitive, claims. For example, the "unconscious" just does not make any sense. It almost seems like a contradiction, and according to Searle it is. As Gertrude Stein once said, "There's no there, there." Again, I've always thought this to be linguistically intuitive, now he makes a broad-based argument against its existence even morphologically (and several more things like "universal grammar" "binary intelligence," etc.).

Finally, I believe this book is necessary reading by all interested in consciousness and the mind. Even if one doesn't agree with his arguments and their conclusions, it's highly important to know and understand them. And because Searle is so accessible, he's a refreshing, indeed cogent, alternative to some of the myopic, convoluted, and constipated thinking going on in the field.

Clearest monograph EVER!!!.......2004-05-27

Searle advocates Biological naturalism" as a valid theory, exposing the misdirectedness of the ever present mind-body problem as being entwined in the western philosophical tradition. Even though Cartesian Dualism has long been predominantly set aside, Searle argues, many of its concepts and vocabulary cloud current theorizing on the subject. Searle argues strongly for recognizing the Subjectivity of consciousness as a 1st-person ontology in itself, unexplainable by an objective epistemology, since its very nature is opposed to that method of investigation. By recognizing this Subjectivity as a property of the brain, and allowing that the mental and physical of the mind-body opposition need not be exclusive, Searle describes consciousness as a property of assemblies of neurons, in the sense that liquidity is a property of H2O moleculse. Unimaginable at the molecular level, but undeniable through a wider point point of view.
The clarity of Searles writing alone makes it worth the read, and his ideas address, if not solve, many of the most interesting topics in the philosophy of mind. Highly recommended to anyone interested in that field.

The study of the mind is the study of consciousness........2003-04-11

This book gives a good picture of the structure of the mind and of its irreducibility.
It explains clearly what's the stumbling block of all scientific and philosophical problems with consciousness: the fact that the mind is only a subjective first-person experience.

But the most interesting part, for me, was his convincing attack against cognitivismn (the theory that the brain is a computer and the mind a computer program).

Nevertheless, I found his book 'The Mystery of Consciousness' more interesting, more profound and more specific, because it laid bare the accuracies / errors of other author's who wrote about the same important items.

state of analytic philosophy of mind at the end of century.......2002-10-12

I sympathize with many of Searle's views about the inelliminability of the intentional character of consciousness, and the general misguidedness of philosophy of mind.. but I would ask: is this a big discovery? why read Searle rather than Husserl in the first place? Is his naturalism of any philosophical depth or interest? I would say no. I believe reading this book is a waste of time, as it was for me...

A Polished Study.......2002-09-12

In this book, Searle briefly reviews the history of the mind-body problem and presents his solution to it. The text is less filled with archaic or strictly philosophical phrases than most books in this field, giving it a comprehensibility that is too often lacking in the mind-body problem. Searle is a brilliant rhetorician, and every one of his arguments is worded in a convincing way. Also, the critique that he presents of the previous work on the mind-body problem is revealing, since he gives what he calls "common-sense objections" to each solution. Overall, an outstanding book.

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Not a fan, but still very good.
A Superb Collection of Articles...

Consciousness and Language
John R. Searle
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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ASIN: 0521597447

Book Description

One of the most important and influential philosophers of the last 30 years, John Searle has been concerned throughout his career with a single overarching question: how can we have a unified and theoretically satisfactory account of ourselves and of our relations to other people and to the natural world? In other words, how can we reconcile our common-sense conception of ourselves as conscious, free, mindful, rational agents in a world that we believe includes brute, unconscious, mindless, meaningless, mute physical particles in fields of force? The essays in this collection are related to this broad overarching issue that unites the diverse strands of Searle's work. As many as these essays have previously only been available in relatively obscure books and journals, this collection will be of particular interest to philosophers and those in psychology and linguistics. Since 1959, John R. Searle has been Professor of Philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley, where he is now the Mills Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Language. His many books include Mind Language and Society, (Basic, 1998). The Construction of Social Reality, (Free Press, 1997), and Speech Acts, (Cambridge, 1969). His works have been translated in 21 languages. Seale has received many prizes, awards and honors, including the Fulbright Award (twice), the Guggenheim, and ACLS Fellowships.

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Customer Reviews:

Not a fan, but still very good........2003-05-21

Yeah, so, I'm going to avoid the part where i think that a couple of important things in this book are stated too vaguely for a responsible philosopher, or where i mention that he seems to make one or two blatant errors of omission. I'm going to avoid these things for the dual reasons that a) they aren't really relevant to whether you should read this or not, and b) i allow for the possibility that i'm imagining these gaps because i haven't understood him, in which case i'm the stupid one. Given my presistent commitment to Legends of the Hidden Temple, that's a distinct possibility.

In spite of what i consider some overly-squooshy language in a handful of places, this is a great book. I'd read intentionality, but never speech acts, and this book seems to tie all of searle's ideas into one large discussion about speech, intention, consciousness, with a few of the expected cuts on AI. It's really put together very well, and the flow from discussions of consciousness to intention to speech acts makes each of the constituent pieces more poigniant. Searle very rarely drifts into blustering territory, writing clearly and concisely in most of the cases where i found a need for really detailed exposition. Good stuff.

So, like i say, 7 times out of 10, i find Searle less than compelling, but this is a really nice survey of a lot of his ideas, and worth a read either as an introduction to his thinking or as a piece that ties together a lot of his older ideas into one coherent package. He's an important guy with important ideas who has helped shape a lot of important discussions, agree or disagree, this book articulates these contributions well.

A Superb Collection of Articles..........2002-07-18

Searle has collected a large and important variety of articles in this text, which spans several years of thinking on issues such as: the nature of consciousness, free will, the mind-body problem, rationality, and collective action. Only one article on Kripke's meaning skepticism has been not previously published.

The vigor and force of questions that Searle queries regarding how it is possible to reconcile our intuitions about having a 'free will' in a world of physical laws and (all things being equal) deterministic principles is important and fundamental. I highly recommend this volume, which conveniently assembles previous articles, and it makes clear Searle's position on these problems. Indeed, it makes clear exactly how difficult and challenging philosophical problems and questions are--and why philosophers stay awake at nights thinking about them...and why no easy solution is forthcoming in philosophy or science...

The articles are written in Searle's usual style--with problem solving on his mind--clearly stating the problem to be addressed and evaluated--a model of philosophical prose...

And I might add...the cover photograph of Searle is splendid--him in a tweed coat...autumn leaves...just in case you've wondered what a suave academic is supposed to look like nowdays...

Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind (Cambridge Paperback Library)
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Excellent Modern Theory of Mind

Frames the large picture of the mind-body duality

Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind (Cambridge Paperback Library)
John R. Searle
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts

ASIN: 0521273021

Book Description

John Searle’s Speech Acts (1969) and Expression and Meaning (1979) developed a highly original and influential approach to the study of language. But behind both works lay the assumption that the philosophy of language is in the end a branch of the philosophy of the mind: speech acts are forms of human action and represent just one example of the mind’s capacity to relate the human organism to the world. The present book is concerned with these biologically fundamental capacities, and, though third in the sequence, in effect it provides the philosophical foundations for the other two. Intentionality is taken to be the crucial mental phenomenon, and its analysis involves wide-ranging discussions of perception, action, causation, meaning, and reference. In all these areas John Searle has original and stimulating views. He ends with a resolution of the ‘mind-body’ problem.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent Modern Theory of Mind.......2001-07-11

P>In his usual manner, Searle tackles the problem of consciousness and how the mind works in this thorough examination of both classical and contemporary concerns. It's an exceedingly masterful task that is richly rewarding, if only slightly frustrating because of his poor syntactical structures.

Analytic philosophy is often difficult enough, and this book is of average difficulty, but when an author does not write clearly with near-run-on sentences, myandering and labyrinthine syntax, and in less than necessary obtuseness, it is a drawback. This is my only complaint.

Part of the problem is the author's, part reader's. Searle is going against the analytic grain by expositing a theory of mind that is at once novel and distinctive, clearing up confusions and ambiguities along the way. But these new ideas and the direction of fit they present are exciting and facinating, even if the presentation is less than perfect.

It's hard to imagine modern-day analytic philosophers going out on a limb with actual theory (they tend toward the criticism of others), so that it is refreshing that someone of Mr. Searle's reputation and caliber takes a stab at presenting a coherent theory of mind in new dress and ambiance: Naive realism.

This isn't the first book of Searle's I'd recommend. That honor goes to "Mind, Language, and Society," his short, but densely argued, and clearer exposition, of several ideas (some of which he adumbrates from this volume). If you like what you read in THAT book, this book will further delight you.

What's so agreeable about Searle, if not his syntax, is his willingness to posit a coherent theory of mind in the traditional vein but in entirely new clothing. It's refreshing to see a modern philosopher actually doing philosophy, not critiquing the philosophy of others. Searle would probably have advanced his cause by having someone else tidy up his presentation, as this drawback reduces the splendor of the overall book.

Frames the large picture of the mind-body duality.......2000-11-04

The current philosophical debates about what is the mind and how can it translate intentions into body actions including language and action are summed up into a convincing, clear-headed, yet arrogant and extremely mis-guided approach to this philosophical question. Searle's logical formalism may "pull-the-wool" over many people's eyes, but his statements have garnered much negative criticism in the eyes of his peers.

Perhaps the best way to sum up his book is that he believes there is no difference between the mind and the body, and that the original question is flawed, yet at the same time, he establishes the existence of an intention, an entirely mental concept have physical equivalences. This is really an uninspired type of answer, and is largely considered a cop-out by most.

Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts
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Speech Act Theory

Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts
John R. Searle
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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ASIN: 0521313937

Book Description

John Searle’s Speech Acts made a highly original contribution to work in the philosophy of language. Expression and Meaning is a direct successor, concerned to develop and refine the account presented in Searle’s earlier work, and to extend its application to other modes of discourse such as metaphor, fiction, reference, and indirect speech arts. Searle also presents a rational taxonomy of types of speech acts and explores the relation between the meanings of sentences and the contexts of their utterance. The book points forward to a larger theme implicit in these problems - the basis certain features of speech have in the intentionality of mind, and even more generally, the relation of the philosophy of language to the philosophy of mind.

Customer Reviews:

Speech Act Theory.......2000-10-06

If your reading Jacques Derrida, esp. Limited Inc and Psyche this work along with Austin's How to do Things with Words are essential. These two books are the fundamental texts of Speech Act Theory. So if you want to find out about Locutions, Illocutionary Force and whatnot check out this text.

Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language

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Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language
John R. Searle
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

Written in an outstandingly clear and lively style, it provokes its readers to rethink issues they may have regarded as long since settled.

The Mystery of Consciousness (New York Review Books Collections)

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free consciousness or master brain?
A gentleman reviews the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
Pretentious and Misrepresentative of other attempts
Common sense amid the preposterous and the half-right.
Interesting debate on consciousness wrapped around book reviews

The Mystery of Consciousness (New York Review Books Collections)
John R. Searle
Manufacturer: New York Review Books
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The Rediscovery of the Mind (Representation and Mind)
Mind, Language, and Society : Philosophy in the Real World

ASIN: 0940322064
Release Date: 1990-01-01

Book Description

It has long been one of the most fundamental problems of philosophy, and it is now, John Searle writes, "the most important problem in the biological sciences": What is consciousness? Is my inner awareness of myself something separate from my body?

In what began as a series of essays in The New York Review of Books, John Searle evaluates the positions on consciousness of such well-known scientists and philosophers as Francis Crick, Gerald Edelman, Roger Penrose, Daniel Dennett, David Chalmers, and Israel Rosenfield. He challenges claims that the mind works like a computer, and that brain functions can be reproduced by computer programs. With a sharp eye for confusion and contradiction, he points out which avenues of current research are most likely to come up with a biological examination of how conscious states are caused by the brain.

Only when we understand how the brain works will we solve the mystery of consciousness, and only then will we begin to understand issues ranging from artificial intelligence to our very nature as human beings.

Customer Reviews:

free consciousness or master brain?.......2007-06-17

The problem I have with most books on this subject, is too much time being spent on theories, rather than adding up the facts...

So, let me get straight to the point.

If the brain was the true seat of consciousness, then one should explain the conscious phenomenon that leads up to entities that have brains. In view of the evolutionist view of single cell life forms, that do, beyond any doubt possess a conscious reality independent of what we would consider to be a brain for conscious dependancy. There are plenty of microbes, bacteria's, plants, etc., that fall under this category that have been instrumental in constructing various brain possessed complexed life-forms on planet earth. How can the reality of these entities be discredited as not possessing a type of consciousness or conscious reality? I argue that it can't... and I will explain through demonstration with a book that I am writing in view of atoms that forms into elements and elements that form into microscopic simple organic cellular forms, to later more diverse complicated life-forms where human beings and other types of intelligent bi-pedal beings come into existence based on an outside intelligent causer.

Also, to sum up the view of computers being consciously intelligent or explaining human intelligence or any other type, would be a lost cause outside of not showing a mathematical dependacy in view of scientific intentionality. Being that a fluncuation of energy into contextual systematic dimensional light states are at work( manipulated gross-matter ). As, already accepted by most scholars on this subject, the context of computers is based on the logic of it's creator creating a mimic of it's own attributes in so far as to what solution it will serve or yield ( case dependent ).

Let me go on the record and say, what ever that is created, is an Artificial Intelligence. Because, there is a reality that precedes the program that has been objectified, therefore, in virtue of this scientific Truth a type of existence can only be ( caused ) by what exist, not by a miricle or accident since these terms or non-scientific within the confines of their erroneous usage.

In better words you cannot scientifically prove a miricle, to do so would prove it not to be a miricle in view of people who mystify certain unexplained matters... Therefore, in view of what reality or consciousness is... consciousness is simply existence that entails the endless potential of math, science and art that is used to manipulate, alter and transform energy/matter... which is what can be observed beyond any doubt or theory to be factual... It does not matter what medium you choose to experiment with to test and see if this is true, it is undeniably unavoidable.

Any philosopher will debate or argue using some type of scientific base as their basis, just as scientist will use philosophical thoughts as their breeding ground to expound upon existing incomplete theories to test and conclude what is objectively factual as oppose to an untrue idea about physical phenomenon's...

Just as it takes energy to move or to create a different flux or effect of energy, the same can be seen of consciousness. Although the context may differ, there is none the less a connecting conservation of attribute in so far of what is needed for any type of phenomenon to exist in a particular manner, as this can only be achieved through consciously-physical intentionality. Case in point, the reality of being a scientist is to consciously intend to produce experiments to explain or to create phenomenon's...

The problem I see in leading schools of thought is how scientist view what energy/matter is... I can assure any world renown physicist... that you cannot know of either without consciousness, nor could brains develop independent of energy/matter which shows the inconsistency of the brain being the seat of consciousness, since something in particular is being developed and cannot be viewed as being outside of the scope of intelligent design, the brain along with other human organs are certain structual forms that have specific functions that makes up a human as well as other animals and even certain insects. Indeed, what human can exist with a brain but be born without a heart and function as a living human being? None...! So, much for the brain being the seat of consciousness...

If one would be stupid enough to ignore this profound Truth then one should not proclaim that there is a difference between their brain and their feet as they are simply denying distinction in that respect. Therefore, there is a difference between non-creatable consciousness and what mirrors it via programed reality...

On closing with my shallow briefing, the whole view of creationist vs evolutionist bares a lot of truth from both perspectives and yet both sides fail to properly discredit the other. Creationist are correct when they suggest the existence of what some refer to as a conscious being above and beyond human intelligence, but the way that it is explained is incorrect and only contradicts certain scientific trues... Just as the evolutionist are correct about how different casualties in the universe develop over a succession of time and quality of enviromental pro-survival fitness, this is only concerning the mechanical condition of described realities, be this, animate organic entities or seemingly inanimate bodies... But, the evolutionist view cannot scientifically prove the ontology of non-creatable consciousness as being a condition of energy particles, in view of needing to come into being what is self-consciousness, although there is a shared facet between the two perspectives that can be seen as being one and the same...

Searles view of the brain being a series of biological capacities or processes is true but only explains a certain type of mechanics dealing with a certain type of conscious experience as I pointed out, which also has been explained in the eastern world of thought, time and time again. There are people who are not born with all of their senses in tack and yet they can exist and function enough to survive as a human being because of possessing certain vital organs and not just the brain. The human experience cannot be summed up as being the result of any one particular sensory over the other in view of the 5 senses. Indeed, there is a sense perception that must be in order for the others to have meaning and purpose and this has nothing to do with the human brain per se, but belongs to a higher level of conscious reality that cannot be caused by anything such as a brain. If consciousness overall was only a phenomenon of the brain, then the cells and proteins that make up the brain is just a human fantasy, but we all know better than this since the human brain can be self-imposed upon and destroyed by human consciousness, so much for that pro-survival feature. The human brain along with everything else of a human is made out of energy/matter that is definitely being controled and constructed into a certain field of formation. This can easily be seen with atoms to elements and elements into organisms that consciously function without brains. This phenomenon can be seen through out the universe, so to suggest what one detects as being defined solely by subjective interpretation via brain conditions, is to ignore when one does not make such an attempt, but only observes what goes on independent of needing to be defined by the observer... Searles view would be like saying that a child who see's fire who does not understand what she or he is seeing has some how unknowingly created the properties of the fires meaning and interaction with what the fire can or will function as... If this is what the author is suggesting theorectically, then his view is very flawed and contradicting.

A dolphin no more constructs Disney cartoons, than a dog that detects a baseball game having any input in the meaning of the game which is a construct of the human condition or reality... The reality of the human mind/brain function and structure are interdependent as the human brain only houses the interaction of what is detected by the nervous system that transmits back to the neuron circuitry of the brain for animal minds to perceive as a conscious experience or conditon of transient phenomenon via electromagnetic ionizing of atomic elements in their respective localities of space-time ( identification ). This is done through the electrons projecting and receiving photonic messages between the differing atoms for the physical experience at hand... There is definitely an outside of cause...

Of course if Mr. Searle was equally versed in scientific knowledge then he would see that not all that is perceived through the mind/brain connection is solely a construct of it, but belongs to a higher reality that cannot be defined by human logic as if to treat consciousness in general, as being a circumstantial object of a brain via some particle inertia becoming mysteriously interupted causing a big-bang in the universe that eventually led to animal intelligence, as some people rant on about... ( chuckles )

Consciousness as a whole, non-created that is, clearly shows that everything in the universe is of the same reality in a diversified state of being, individualism, form, math, science, art, structure, and function is what takes place through intelligence not the lack thereof... sure consciousness cannot be reduced in Truth, but perception can and has... Therefore without perceptual intelligence there can be no conception and so, let any brave scientist show me a brain that can develop devoid of this...

As certain schools of thought grow more comfortable with not being at the top of the intelligent chain these views of what consciousness is will be more accepted in view of what has to be in order for their to be life as we know of it...

A gentleman reviews the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly........2006-10-24

John Searle believes consciousness is a result of the biological properties of the human brain. To quote him exactly: "biological brains have a remarkable biological capacity to produce experiences, and these experiences only exist when they are felt by some human or animal agent." That does not seem like a controversial statement, but Searle has been subject to merciless ad hominem attack because of that and some of his other contributions to the discussion of consciousness. In this book he not only deftly defends himself, he leaves his chief critic, the squid-like philosopher Daniel Dennett, writhing in the dust in a most satisfying manner.

Searle is a philosopher, not a scientist, so his concern is to help the scientists keep their metaphysics straight. With that in mind, he reviews six leading theories of consciousness, including Dennett's, and clearly explains their virtues and deficiencies. His deft and gentlemanly demolition of Dennett is particularly satisfying, but all the essays are interesting. He packs an enormous amount of information and insight into this deceptively simple little book.

Consciousness is a difficult subject to approach scientifically because it is a subjective experience. What we can observe and measure about it are only the external manifestations of consciousness - the observer can never get "inside" the experience of another - at least not yet. That doesn't mean that consciousness will never be understood scientifically, Searle believes, just that we aren't there yet, and getting there will require humility and clear thinking. He believes consciousness will eventually be understood when we understand exactly and in detail how the brain works. We are very far from that point today, but Searle points the way forward.

Pretentious and Misrepresentative of other attempts.......2006-08-21

This book is a collection of extremely pretentious responses to several other authors of books on this topic. He often misrepresents (or possibly just misunderstands) many of the arguments of other authors. The only thing going for this book is that it covers many different authors who attack the problem of consciousness from different angles. One can get an idea of who the big players in this field are from this book.

Common sense amid the preposterous and the half-right........2006-02-28

So you think you might be conscious? Are you materialistically conscious, in a way that denies reality to your inner monologue? Are you conscious in a way that mirrors quantum mechanics and computational philosophizing? Are you mind and body, or mind in body? From Crick to Dennett to Chalmers, from Descartes to the funny papers, reading about mind and body is simply hard work, because nobody adopts a direct style in order to de-mystify their work. One comes to believe that most authors writing about human consciousness are more concerned about being seen as big brains, than about advancing general knowledge in a way open to debate.

Except this book is great, precisely because it is clear, and the author has original insights to offer. Consciousness, our inner monologue, is irreducible, a real phenomenon, but it springs from nature, and is caused by the brain.

By examining the hot writers of the day, in a series of reviews of their works, Searle is able to demonstrate the jargon, purposive mystification, and mistakes made by both the brain scientists and the computational mystics. He offers simple statements of testable fact as an antidote to the over-wrought and over-long insights of the glittering stars of modern consciousness mongering.

When you get done here, you will be better informed, able to think your way at least partly around this issue, and aware of some of the current mistakes that dominate the field. Rather than dualism, or materialistic monism, this book offers an intuitive view of biological brains giving rise to irreducible consciousness. Impressive for a short book. And it is quite readable, for we lay persons, as well.

Interesting debate on consciousness wrapped around book reviews.......2006-01-22

"The Mystery of Consciousness" is simply an expansion and revision of a series of book reviews from the mid 90s. Searle has added a first and last chapter in which he expounds his own views and included the written responses of a couple of the authors to his original reviews. Essentially then, the book is a work of criticism with a dash of the author's own views.

The book is well-written and interesting. Searle can tear an argument into its constituent pieces, summarize it and raise objections as clearly as anyone. It also provides an excellent survey of some important authors on the subject: Crick, Penrose, Dennett, etc. However, as usual with unsolved philosophical problems, it is far easier to tear down the arguments of others than to make a clear, correct argument yourself. Further, it becomes obvious that the authors (including Searle) are talking past each other...using the same words with different meanings.

The problem is illustrated at the very beginning. On page 5, Searle writes:
"One issue can be dealt with swiftly. There is a problem that...does not seem very serious to me, and that is the problem of defining "consciousness" .... if we distinguish between analytic definitions, which aim to analyze the underlying essence of a phenomenon, and common-sense definitions .... it does not seem to me at all difficult to give a common-sense definition of the term: 'consciousness' refers to those states of sentience and awareness that typically begin when we awake from a dreamless sleep and continue until we go to sleep again"

And hence come many difficulties, because the other authors Searle is studying are not all using this definition. They are not all even using their own common-sense definitions, but may be using analytic definitions. Thus Searle's comments like "consciousness is irreducible" are obvious to him, using his exact definition, but not all obvious if consciousness is defined some other way. Further, science and mathematics are littered with common-sense definitions that turned out to be useless or wrong, for example the assumption that light consisted of waves and matter of particles, and the absolute monistic nature of each as one or the other. His mantra that "Consciousness is a biological phenomena like digestion or photosynthesis" is tautological if we are referring to his intuitive definition, but flatly false if defined in other ways.

Thus the weakest part of this book: the exchanges between Searle and Dennett and between Searle and Chalmers. In the Searle/Dennett debate both end up shouting past each other, pointing out the absurdity of the other's positions and the obviousness of their own, because they are using different definitions of not only "consciousness" but "mind", "qualia", "artificial intelligence" and even such basic terms as "subjective" and "objective". The Chalmers conversation is a little less acrimonious, but just as unsatisfactory...Chalmers at least comes across as more of a gentleman than Dennett or Searle.

The final chapter, Searle's summary of his own position, is excellent. It is more balanced and self-critical than his remarks in the original reviews, and offers an excellent Q&A that anticipates the objections to his views and answers them. Nonetheless, as Searle himself recognizes, the book leaves us mostly with questions, and I believe we will eventually find even the questions are wrong. For example, the question "How does the brain generate consciousness?" may ultimately turn out to be as misguided as "How many epicycles are involved in the orbit of Mars?"

Alcohol and the Family: Research and Clinical Perspectives

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Alcohol and the Family: Research and Clinical Perspectives

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Searle sinks, swims in unknown waters
Towards a philosophy of social reality?
Searching Under the Street Lamp
Searle: Primus Inter Pares
Searle's Attempt to Naturalize the Status Quo

The Construction of Social Reality
John R. Searle
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ASIN: 0684831791

Customer Reviews:

Searle sinks, swims in unknown waters.......2007-03-21

With due regard for Mr Searles'eminence, he is out of his depth critiquing the construction of social reality. He neither mentions nor footnotes Berger & Luckmann's "The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge." This 1967 book was the theoretical starting point for the entire recent scholarship now known loosely as social constructionism. Whether you agree with it or not, you at least have to deal with it, and show you have read it. Any book that does not is ipso facto defective.

Towards a philosophy of social reality?.......2007-03-15

Personally, I'm not so sure whether Searle really gets it. In my opinion he really downplays power relations and differences that are a major part of social reality. This book is best juxtaposed with a book that does address conflict and interrelations between indviduals, i.e. Pierre Bourdieu's work.

Searching Under the Street Lamp.......2006-11-21

John Searle is unique among today's Anglo-American philosophers for his understandable and breezy writing style. He tells you what he is going to tell you; tells you; and then tells you what he told you - almost as though he were briefing the Pentagon. Construction of Social Reality is a fine example.

Searle is a philosophical realist and has always made a compelling case for our living in a single world, part of it outside of us and part within us, part objective and part subjective, part ontologic and part epistemic. In this book, in fact, he reviews the various combinations quite neatly. (Searle, in the early chapters, also includes animals other than humans. Another positive!)

In trying to convince us that institutions are as real as the brute facts of existence and mind he stumbles. He is correct on one score; institutions are real. But Searle builds virtually his entire argument on the conception of collective intent, or collective intention (or intentionality). On the one hand, he dismisses a version of the collective conscious, or geist as Hegel supposes. He makes no argument, other than the concept does not make common sense - especially for a realist. On the other hand, he counters the "opposite" position, that each individual expresses collective intent as "I intend because I believe you intend." That is not the case either, he asserts. Instead he believes that "we intend" operates linguistically and innately - as an a priori mental function. Simply because each sentient being is distinct from each other does not necessarily mean that, through language, we cannot express "we intend." This is pretty much the argument upon which he builds the entire book.

First, Searle does not consider other intentional patterns, such as one individual asserts "I intend" at time t, and another asserts "I [too] intend" at time t+n. In fact, Searle, in his "we intend" (I hesitate to call it an argument, as his case is too shallow for that) conjecture, does not consider time at all, in particular atomicity - wherein events occur or are perceived "simultaneously" within some acceptable bound. I personally prefer the "sequential, but appearing simultaneous," approach to the creation of institutional rules and facts, but this is not the place to make an argument. There are many examples of institutions, great and small, that have been created by a single mind, and then many, more or less, instantly agreed. Thus, the appearance of "we intend." One can think of thousands of examples: Freud and psychoanalysis, George Halas and the National Football League, Marx and Communism, to name three.

It is a great loss indeed that Searle undermines his own case, as he is correct in asserting that institutions are real. In fact, his description of how names, functions, and rules are identified is clear, and his examples of money, baseball, football, and marriage are apt and entertaining.

There are other profound difficulties. In describing his theory of the "logical construction" of social reality, Searle uses what he refers to as "iteration," with a feeble presentation of symbolic logic. In fact, what he is describing is the well-worn and well-understood theory of logical types, proposed by Russell and used in the social sciences, notably by Gregory Bateson, to explain the ever-rising tree of abstraction. Either Searle is unaware of this work, or he must believe that it is inappropriate or simply wrong. In any case, he never mentions it. (He also fails to cite references to "the evening star" expression, which resonates as far back as Parmenides and as recently as Karl Pooper - and many other logicians. He cannot be unaware of this tradition, yet he writes: "there is an expression" [the evening star] ... it has a sense and meaning" as though he were breaking new ground in linguistics and the philosophy of language.)

Another troubling point is this: Searle believes (again he has no sustainable argument) that processes precede the objects they [eventually] correlate with. He devotes an entire
heading (in Chapter 2) to it: "Systematic Relations and the Primacy of the Act over the Object." His answer to why there is this primacy is simply "that the `objects' are really designed to serve agentive functions and have little interest for us otherwise... they are just placeholders of activities [his italics]." This suggestion discards thousands of years of mathematics and its role in philosophy. If we are to presume that human thinking is most exquisitely captured by our mathematics (thus space vessels we launch into outer space contain mathematical symbols in the hopes that other sentient species might understand us), then we cannot avoid what has been proven: that objects are bound by the operations under which they are closed. In fact, there are no placeholders. Processes (to use Searle's word) and objects are intrinsic to one another. Each inheres within the other.
Despite the leap from static mathematical relations to real world activities and objects, I find this to be a far more convincing explanation. This, not just because of its pedigree, but because it also raises the issue of bounded time - as I discussed above under collective intent: What is - in fact - atomic and what is not? Here again Searle does not raise the temporal issue at all. For example, how long are his "placeholder objects" placeholders? A millisecond? A thousand years? Just long enough?

Searle is at his most creative in Chapter 6: "Background Abilities and the Explanation of Social Phenomena." Here he will not truck with previous work, specifically by "Chomsky or Fodor and not even Freud" on consciousness and the unconscious. Instead, he proposes "an alternate form of presentation." Hoping to close in on neurophysiology, he suggests how intentionality is born, speculating upon "states," "functions," and so on, revisiting [uncredited but for his own] work on the will, motivation, learning, and the boundaries between the individual alert mind and the phylogenetic, historical mind.

It is at this point that I more clearly understood Searle's objective. Put broadly, How can we infer the reality of social institutions and their behavior from the metaphors of mind? The question, the objective, suddenly struck me as unimportant. Do Searle's meta-states and pre-intentional background and dispositions and tendencies represent a closed mapping of mental abstraction to brain function and organization? Is it an accurate mapping? Can it be verified? The answer to all is very probably No. But even if the answer were Yes, the answer is meaningless. The question is equivalent to looking for the lost wedding ring only under the street lamp of consciousness, which is of course Searle's field.

Given that the ontology of our institutions and societies have evolved into highly artificial, complex hives of isolation, a fruitful line of questioning would seem to run more towards moral inquiry than brain chemistry. Yes, we live in a world of natural and artificial phenomena. All are real. But, it seems to me, the decisive issue is why mankind, which has evolved to attain a far greater degree of free will than any other being on the planet, persists in creating such a plethora of artificiality, to the point that we are undermining the very world we live in? Why do human beings - perhaps because we know we are living under a death sentence? - try to find solace, not just in groups, but in the fervent pursuit of machines, numbers, religions, money, and acquisitions?
.
A final comment or two on the book. Chapters 7 through 9 are an add-n, as Searle mentions in the Introduction. As a kind of coda, he replays his view of realism and correspondence theory. While this message could stand to be reread, it did not need to be rewritten; and it upsets the balance of the book. Also, given the number of terms Searle introduces in the book, the index is meager and not particularly helpful.

Searle: Primus Inter Pares.......2006-05-21

John Searle is a philosopher's philosopher. He's also scrupulously honest to a fault. When reading him, one never has to stop and wonder whether he really believes what he's saying. The present work, "The Construction of Social Reality" (CSR)" is no exception. Lucid, cogent, packed with insights, CSR is vintage Searle--a thinker who just seems to get better and better with age. Nowadays one can no more ignore Searle than could a medieval thinker ignore Aristotle, or a modern thinker ignore Kant. When I begin writing on any philosophical subject, I always check to see whether Searle is close by.

CSR offers the most perspicuous account of "social facts" or "institutional facts" of any work I know of, except, perhaps, Chapter 5 of Searle's earlier work, "Intentionality." I would recommend that anyone interested in the subject read that chapter together with CSR. The focus of Chapter 5 is "the Background." Searle develops this notion at great length in CSR, especially in Chapter 6. (The great strength of CSR is the logical progression of topics from one chapter to the next.) The idea of the Background has been around at least since Husserl and Heidegger, and is a key element in Heidegger's analysis in "Being and Time." To be sure, Searle does not slavishly follow Heidegger; the two thinkers have very different takes on what intentionality is. (An especially lucid analysis of the difference between Searle and Heidegger can be found in Hubert Dreyfus' classic introduction to Heidegger, "Being-In-The-World.") But anyone who has had second thoughts about running headlong into the thicket of Heideggerian prose can hardly do better than start with Searle. After all, when we're doing philosophy, it's always a good idea to understand the problem we're trying to solve, and the questions we're trying to answer. And Heidegger doesn't make it easy to do this. Searle does.

Not that Searle is perfect. Like most philosophers, he doesn't always resist the urge to engage in speculative metaphysics. This he does early on in CSR. For example, he writes: "Since our investigation is ontological, i.e., about how social facts exist, we need to figure out how social reality fits into our overall ontology, i.e., how the existence of social facts relates to other things that exist. We will have to make some substantive presuppositions about how the world is in fact in order that we can even pose the questions we are trying to answer. We will be talking about how social reality fits into a larger ontology, but in order to do that, we will have to describe some of the features of that larger ontology." (CSR, 5-6.)

Yes, we do have to make presuppositions. But here is one point on which Searle and Heidegger differ; and I'm inclined to side with Heidegger. We don't really have to get clear on what our presuppositions are; and, in fact, it's doubtful that we ever do. When we think we do, we invariably get entangled in a speculative venture. The whole foundationalist notion that we must begin with "clear and distinct ideas" rings a bit archaic nowadays. Searle tries to achieve clarity by accepting as incontrovertible axioms which, for him, mark out the boundaries of any human cognitive enterprise. Listen to Searle: "The truth is, for us, most of our metaphysics is derived from physics (including the other natural sciences). Many features of the contemporary natural science conception of reality are still in dispute and still problematic . . . But two features of our conception of reality are not up for grabs. They are not, so to speak, optional for us as citizens of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. It is a condition of your being an educated person in our era that you are apprised of these two theories: the atomic theory of matter and the evolutionary theory of biology." (CSR, 6.)

It is true that an educated person must be "apprised" of these two theories. It doesn't follow however, that one give them the foundational significance which Searle claims for them. What matters is not our metaphysics, but our presuppositions. And, as Heidegger would insist, we can't get clear about them by appealing to science. In fact, science is not interested in our "conception of reality" or the ultimate origins of things. If our presuppositions get in the way of our ability to do science, we may have to change them in part. But this doesn't mean that we have to draw a picture of ultimate reality in its totality in order to proceed with science. Again, this is just not something that scientists care about. I submit that Searle's analysis of institutional facts can go forward whether he's a committed naturalist or a believer in divine revelation.

But then, again, none of this matters to a reader who wants to know about how social reality is put together. And for that, this is the definitive source. Searle long ago earned his status as primus inter pares in the philosophical community. Whether he's as much a thinker for everyone else is less certain. In an age when muddled thinking is deemed virtuous, and most people have learned all they know about philosophy from Oprah Winfrey, one must probably conclude that Searle will always be at home among his own. He'll never been invited to appear on a daytime talk show. To his credit, I'm confident he wouldn't accept the invitation. I wish I could give CSR ten stars instead of five.

Aidan McDowell

Searle's Attempt to Naturalize the Status Quo.......2003-07-02

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

--Tennyson, "The Charge of the Light Brigade"

The above epigraph is a particularly aggrandized yet fatal example of what John R. Searle would consider a "[c]ollective intentionality [that] generate[s] agentive functions as easily as individual intentionality" (39). The specific historical context is the Crimean War, which plausibly constitutes an "institutional fact" because both the individuals that comprise "the six hundred"-a British cavalry brigade-and those against whom the brigade mounts the offensive-entrenched Russian soldiers manning artillery batteries-acknowledge a state of war and comport themselves accordingly. Thus both the British light brigade and the Russian artillerymen share among themselves "a sense of doing (wanting, believing, etc.) something together, and the individual intentionality that each person has is derived from the collective intentionality that they share" (24-25). Each member of the light brigade is grimly-and, in many cases, fatally-determined to storm the Russians' position. Moreover, each member remains uncritical of and subordinate to the marching orders, despite the fact that some are aware that these orders resulted from botched communication. Thus the end that the collective intention is to effect is unrealizable, and yet the six hundred nevertheless execute their orders to the letter.

I use the example of Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade" to illustrate the puzzling and potentially unsettling implications of Searle's taxonomy of the constitutive features of social reality. That is, if the six hundred's successful execution of the offensive is nearly impossible (as it proves to be), then what is its collective intention exactly? Or, differently phrased, what is the true telos of the six hundred's collective endeavor? Textual evidence suggests that Tennyson intended his poem to be a paean to the uncritical devotion to duty that the six hundred demonstrated in the face of impossible odds, but is this a satisfactory explanation? It would thus imply that the true telos of the six hundred is to instantiate an abstraction, an abstraction that is moreover both implicitly Statist and imperial (the expansion, consolidation and maintenance of Britain's colonial holdings).

Searle's claim that in cooperative endeavors one's individual intentionality derives from, and is therefore bound up in, collective intentionality appears to limit artificially her individual intentionality and agency, especially as concerns her critical function. For instance, there is plenty of which to be critical about the circumstances surrounding "The Charge of the Light Brigade," and yet not one among the six hundred broke ranks to save himself from slaughter. In fact, the very opportunity to exercise one's critical function is foreclosed by some trumping principle of duty: "Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die." Therefore, the unwavering and uncritical devotion to duty can be said to be a "constitutive rule" of war in Searle's nomenclature. Specifically, rank and the chain of command are institutional facts of war, and as such can "exist only within a system of constitutive rules" (28). Thus, should the six hundred violate the call to duty and desert the battlefield, the ontology of the war wold become seriously jeopardized, for what are rules without individuals to enact and to obey them? And if the facticity of war depends upon its systemic cohesion, which is a system of constitutive rules, then to refuse to obey those rules is to refuse war's institutional facticity.

Consequently, I find Searle's ostensibly objective and descriptive approach-an approach that I have deduced from his tone and prose style-to be quite deceptive, because the bulk of his observations rely more on hegemonic "givens" than scientific objectivity.

Philosophers:

Philosophers

Philosophers