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SEARLE’S REALISM DECONSTRUCTED

SAM PAGE

THE PHILOSOPHICAL FORUMVolume XXXV, No. 3, Fall 2004

INTRODUCTION

This article critically examines John Searle’s spirited approach to the contem-porary realism and anti-realism debate in metaphysics. Searle’s treatment of the issues is rough. He blurs over many of the distinctions that matter in the debateand entertains uncharitable readings of perceived adversaries. His articulation ofthe position he refers to variously as Realism, Metaphysical Realism, ExternalRealism, and sometimes Scientific Realism is shifty, but not because he movesfrom one position he calls Realism, to distinct positions he calls MetaphysicalRealism and External Realism, respectively. Rather, it is shifty because he refersto several distinguishable positions as if they were one and the same position, usingall three names in seemingly random fashion. Further complicating matters is that,on the one hand, Searle presents realism as if it were so commonsensical that it would be insane to reject, as he alleges that social constructionists do. On theother hand, Searle’s account, spreading across numerous books and articles, is acomplex, intertwining network of subtle, sophisticated, technical, and contempo-rary insights and arguments that is challenging to see in its entirety. However, whenviewed in its entirety, it is revealed not to be a single, unified tapestry, but ratherseveral tenuously linked cloths. Nonetheless, Searle’s realism is a fascinatingaccount to scrutinize closely, and has the value of raising passionately, albeit withconcomitant confusion, the deep issues at the heart of the debate.

This article proceeds as follows. First, Searle’s argument for External Realism,the thesis that there is a way things are that is totally mind-independent, is exam-ined. Second, Searle’s claim that External Realism is the definitive conception ofthe Western Rationalistic Tradition is critically considered. Third, Searle’s logical-dependency argument is laid out, and its possible connections to External Realismare considered. The logical-dependency argument concludes that social reality is

ultimately constructed out of brute physical reality. The External Realism andlogical-dependency arguments combined are supposed to refute social construc-tionism, the provocative thesis that all reality is socially constructed. I argue atlength that Searle’s refutation fails, not in virtue of some strength of social con-structionism, but in virtue of weaknesses internal to Searle’s account. These weak-nesses include (1) a tenuous connection between the two major arguments, (2) anapparent circularity in the logical-dependency argument, and (3) a compatibilitybetween External Realism and social constructionism. The article concludes byconsidering some theories about the root problems of Searle’s account.

SEARLE’S EXTERNAL REALISM AND THE ARGUMENT FROMCONCEPTUAL RELATIVISM

The origins of Searle’s The Construction of Social Reality are found in severalearlier works, where Searle is preoccupied with realism, or Metaphysical Realismas he also calls it, and its ostensible rejection by anti-realists and others. Searleinsists that the rejection of realism is responsible for the erosion of our intellec-tual and educational traditions. This is because, Searle succinctly writes: “withoutmetaphysical realism, anything is permissible.”1 Searle defines the position herefers to variously as Realism and Metaphysical Realism as follows:

Reality exists independently of human representations. This view, called “realism,” . . . is thatthough we have mental and linguistic representations of the world in the form of beliefs, experi-ences, statements, and theories, there is a world “out there” that is totally independent of theserepresentations.2

Metaphysical Realism, so stated, sounds uncontroversial. The claim is thatalthough a natural reality, such as a mountain, may be described variously, thereis a way the mountain is in reality that renders statements about it more or lesstrue, or more or less false. Talking about mountains has no bearing on whetheror not they exist. Mountains, along with indefinitely more physical things, arecausally independent of us; thinking does not make them so.

Searle claims that numerous philosophers, including Thomas Kuhn, NelsonGoodman, and Richard Rorty, reject realism, ostensibly in favor of the anti-realistposition that all reality is socially constructed. Searle does not endorse the con-verse view that none of reality is socially constructed. Realities such as tax laws,home runs, and dollar bills, which Searle calls social (or institutional) realities,are clearly dependent on us. In addition, the portion of the world that is com-

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1 John R. Searle, New York Review of Books (December 6, 1990): 40.2 John R. Searle, “Rationality and Realism: What Is at Stake?” Daedalus 122 (1993): 60.

prised of minds is not mind-independent. However, there are vast stretches ofreality that do not fall under these exceptional categories, and it is these stretchesthat are totally independent of us and our representations of them. For instance,“the elliptical orbit of the planets relative to the sun, the structure of the hydro-gen atom, and the amount of snowfall in the Himalayas, for example, are totallyindependent of both the system and the actual instances of human representationsof these phenomena.”3 Although linguistically representing these realities requireshuman participation, “the actual situations in the world that correspond to thesestatements are not human creations, nor are they dependent on human motiva-tion.”4 All this sounds very sensible, but Searle is aware of the many objectionslooming in philosophical space. Thus, Searle makes the caveat that he is not priv-ileging a particular description of the independently real, but is merely alludingto those things that are totally independent of us.

Searle further develops his position, along with its caveats, in The Construc-tion of Social Reality.5 There he dubs his version of Metaphysical Realism “Exter-nal Realism,” which “does not say how things are but only that there is a waythat they are. And ‘things’ . . . does not mean material objects or even objects.”6

External Realism “is purely formal without any specific content about, forexample, objects in space.”7 So much for the elliptical orbits of the planets, andso much for snowfall in the Himalayas. Searle’s “external reality” is totally devoidof specified content. Searle is not specifying how “external reality” is, but just“that there is a way that things are that is independent of all representations ofhow things are.”8 Searle writes that it is a mistake

to suppose that realism is committed to the theory that there is one best vocabulary for describingreality, that reality itself must determine how it should be described. (. . .) The view that the worldexists independently of our representations of it does not imply that there is a privileged vocabu-lary for describing it.9


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3 Searle, “Rationality and Realism” 61.4 Searle, “Rationality and Realism” 61.5 Though Searle’s title, The Construction of Social Reality, clearly sounds like a pun on the famous

book The Social Construction of Reality by Berger and Luckmann, Searle claims that he was neitherresponding to nor that he had heard of that book before choosing his title. John R. Searle, “Repliesto the Critics of The Construction of Social Reality,” History of the Human Sciences 10, (1997):106–107.

6 John R. Searle, The Construction of Social Reality (New York: The Free Press, 1995): 155. Searlewrites on the previous page: “I use the metaphor of ‘external’ to mark the fact that the view in question holds that reality exists outside of, or external to, our system of representation.” Searle’sExternal Realism contrasts obviously with Putnam’s Internal Realism, which holds that what wecall realities can only exist internal to a system of representation.

7 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 183.8 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 182.9 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 155.

External Realism is simply the view “that there is something out there to bedescribed.”10

Searle thinks that it is wrongly thought that Conceptual Relativism and Meta-physical Realism are incompatible. They are, Searle maintains, compatible, andit is this compatibility that provides support for External Realism. Searle definesthe thesis of Conceptual Relativism as follows:

Systems of representation, such as vocabularies and conceptual schemes generally, are human creations, and to that extent arbitrary. It is possible to have any number of different systems ofrepresentations for representing the same reality.11

More succinctly, Searle writes: “All representations of reality are made relativeto some more or less arbitrarily selected set of concepts.”12 According to Searle,Conceptual Relativism, so stated, is true and perfectly consistent with ExternalRealism.

To bolster his case, Searle adduces Hilary Putnam’s celebrated thought exper-iment.13 Imagine three objects, a, b, and c. How many objects are there? It is truethat there are three objects, but depending on how we choose to individuateobjects, it is also true that there are seven objects: (1) a, (2) b, (3) c, (4) a + b,(5) b + c, (6) a + c, (7) a + b + c.14 Searle writes:

So how many objects are there really in the imagined world? Are there really three or really seven?There is no absolute answer to these questions. The only answers we can give are relative to thearbitrary choice of conceptual schemes. The sentence, e.g., “There are exactly three objects in theworld,” will be true in one scheme, false in the other.15

Putnam’s thought experiment, at least according to Searle, refutes the claim thatthere is one privileged description of reality. The point Searle emphasizes, though,is that each classification is of the same reality. Driving the point further, Searlewrites:

If conceptual relativity is to be used as an argument against realism, it seems to presuppose a language-independent reality that can be carved up or divided up in different ways, by differentvocabularies.16

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10 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 161.11 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 151.12 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 161.13 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 161–2.14 Objects 4–7 are called mereological objects or mereological sums in the literature.15 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 162.16 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 165.

And furthermore:

That we use the word “cat” the way we do is up to us; that there is an object that exists indepen-dently of that use, and satisfies that use, is a plain matter of (absolute, intrinsic, mind-independent)fact.17

If Conceptual Relativism is true, and Searle thinks it is, then it requires that therebe a reality that exists independently of classifications, which those classificationsare about. It is in this way that Conceptual Relativism is compatible with and sup-ports Searle’s External Realism. This argument from Conceptual Relativism isone of several arguments Searle adduces in support of External Realism. We willnow consider a second.

EXTERNAL REALISM AS A NECESSARY PRESUPPOSITION

Beginning with his book Intentionality, Searle has claimed that realism isneither a thesis nor a theory. After defending External Realism, Searle concedes:“I have not demonstrated that external realism is true.”18 If Searle’s brand ofrealism is not demonstrably true, then exactly what status does it have? Searlewrites:

I have tried to show that it [External Realism] is presupposed by the use of very large sections of a public language. (. . .) I have not shown that there is a real world but only that you are committed to its existence when you talk to me or to anyone else.19

Searle is relying on a robust distinction between a thesis and a presupposition. Athesis, as Searle is using the word, is an assertion that is in principle falsifiable.For instance, “the cat is on the mat” is an empirically verifiable assertion that istrue if and only if it is the case that the cat is actually on the mat. The same goesfor a statement such as “the southern flank of Mt. Everest” is in Nepal—we canactually check and see whether or not this statement is true. Conversely, state-ments like “reality is independent of our representations of it” are fundamentallydifferent in kind from paradigmatic assertions. Determining the statement’s valid-ity is not simply a matter of comparing the sentence with the corresponding stateof affairs. Realism, writes Searle, “is not a hypothesis, belief, or philosophicalthesis,”20 but rather “the precondition of having hypotheses.”21 Searle writes:


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17 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 166.18 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 194.19 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 194.20 John R. Searle, Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge

UP, 1983): 158.21 Searle, Intentionality 159.

One can show that this or that claim corresponds or fails to correspond to how things really arein the “external world,” but one cannot in that way show that the claim that there is an externalworld corresponds to how things are in the external world, because any question of correspond-ing or failing to correspond to the external world already presupposes the existence of an externalworld to which the claim corresponds or fails to correspond. External realism is thus not a thesisnor an hypothesis but the condition of having certain sorts of theses or hypotheses.22

How would we check whether or not the statement “there is an external world”is true? By comparing that statement with the external world, which of coursepresupposes the external world, the very thing whose existence is under question.It is for this reason that Searle concludes that Realism, the view that “reality existsindependently of human representations,” functions “as part of the taken-for-granted background of our practices” and as such cannot be demonstrated as true within these practices.23 Realism is “a necessary presupposition for a largechunk of thought and language.”24 Accordingly, there can be no knockdown, non-circular, non-question begging defense of Realism, beacuse any such proofpresupposes it.25

It is for these reasons that Searle claims that the External Realism thesis isoverwhelmingly compelling—though not quite, technically speaking, true. Onething is for certain, though, and that is that External Realism is not false. Searlewrites: “You cannot coherently deny realism and engage in ordinary linguisticpractices, because realism is a condition of the normal intelligibility of those prac-tices.”26 Denying realism involves a performative contradiction. In performing theutterance “there is no independently existing world,” a condition necessary fordetermining the truth or falsity of this statement is contradicted—namely, the con-dition that there is a way the world is. The same performative contradiction ensuesfrom saying “I do not exist.” By saying “I do not exist,” I am contradicting oneof the conditions that must hold for me to make that statement: namely, the condition that I exist.

Perhaps there is a disanalogy here, though. There is no way that a living personstating “I exist” could be wrong. There is no discovery that could be made tofalsify the statement. Now consider the claim “there is a mind-independentreality.” Would the discovery that the physical world is an illusion and everythingis ultimately an idea defeat the claim? No, according to Searle, because even ifit turned out that the physical world was a figment of our collective imagination,that would still be a fact about reality that is independent of what we say and

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22 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 178.23 Searle, “Rationality and Realism” 80.24 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 182.25 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 178.26 Searle, “Rationality and Realism” 81.

think about it. This is an important aspect of Searle’s External Realism that isworth belaboring for a moment. Searle rehearses the following dialogue, startingwith an imaginary interlocutor:

“But suppose it should turn out that the only things that exist or ever did exist are states of dis-embodied consciousness. Surely that would be inconsistent with realism. . . .” No, not necessar-ily. Realism does not say that the world had to turn out one way rather than another, but only thatthere is a way that it did turn out that is independent of our representations of it. Representationsare one thing, the reality represented another, and this point is true even if it should turn out thatthe only actual reality is mental states.27

That Searle’s External Realism seems compatible with idealism will be revisitedlater.

The “transcendental argument,” as Searle calls it, that External Realism is anecessary presupposition of communicative practices, coupled with the argumentfrom Conceptual Relativism, jointly support the conclusion that there is a totallymind-independent reality. The conclusion entails nothing specific about the char-acter of the external world, because External Realism is a formal claim that isexpressly not committed to any specific descriptions about the way the world isintrinsically.

Here is a rough schematization of the argument for External Realism so far:

Premise 5a: A public language presupposes a language-independent reality.Premise 5b: There is a public language.Premise 6a: Conceptual Relativism presupposes independent reality.Premise 6b: Conceptual Relativism is true.

Conclusion 2: There is a way things are that is totally independent of us and our repre-sentations (no commitment to specific content, no privileged descriptions).28

Although Searle’s version of Metaphysical Realism seems uncontroversial,philosophers from across the realism/anti-realism spectrum find it wanting.William Alston, who defends a stronger version of Metaphysical Realism, writes:“that there is something that is not so dependent [on our conceptual-theoreticalchoices], is hardly significant enough to be worth the trouble.”29 Richard Rorty,on the other side, thinks Searle defends a version of Metaphysical Realism that


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27 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 156–57.28 Premises 5a and 5b clearly go together, as do 6a and 6b. Why the premises are numbered 5 and 6,

and the conclusion 2, will be clear when the whole argument is schematized.29 William P. Alston, A Sensible Metaphysical Realism (Milwaukee: Marquette UP, 2001): 10.

nobody has ever attacked.30 Rorty claims that what principally unites anti-realistsis a suspicion of the idea that there is One Way the World Is intrinsically.31

However, Searle’s External Realism entails nothing specific about the intrinsicstructure of reality.

In order to find the claims that aggravate anti-realists, and the claims that wouldbe worth Alston’s while, we must consider two of Searle’s other related theses.The first thesis involves Searle’s claims about the role of External Realism inwhat he calls the Western Rationalistic Tradition. The second thesis is that allsocial reality logically depends on totally brute physical reality. These theses areconsidered in turn.

REALISM AS THE DEFINITIVE PRINCIPLE OF THE WESTERNRATIONALISTIC TRADITION

We have examined Searle’s claim that External Realism is a necessary pre-supposition of communicative interaction. If this is true, then it goes withoutsaying that External Realism plays a very important role in socio-linguistic prac-tice. This, however, is only one of several roles that Searle attributes to ExternalRealism.

Searle writes:

There is a conception of reality, and of the relationships between reality on the one hand andthought and language on the other, that . . . is so fundamental that to some extent it defines thattradition. (. . .) Without too much exaggeration one can describe this conception as “the WesternRationalistic Tradition”.32

Reality exists independently of human representations. This view, called “realism,’ is the founda-tional principle of the Western Rationalistic Tradition.33

Searle thinks, uncontroversially, that the various practices, primarily the scien-tific ones, that emerged from the Enlightenment are worth preserving. What iscontroversial is Searle’s characterization of these practices. According to Searle(quoting from above), External Realism is the definitive conception, or in otherwords, “the foundational principle of the Western Rationalistic Tradition.” Fur-thermore, External Realism just is the Western Rationalistic Tradition: “Withouttoo much exaggeration one can describe this conception as ‘the Western Rationalistic Tradition’.”

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30 Richard Rorty, “Realism, Antirealism, and Pragmatism,” in Realism/Antirealism and Epistemol-ogy, ed. Christopher B. Kulp (New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1997): 160.

31 Rorty, “Realism, Antirealism, and Pragmatism” 160.32 Searle, “Rationality and Realism” 57.33 Searle, “Rationality and Realism” 60.

The implication of Searle’s portrayal of the Western Rationalistic Tradition is that critiquing External Realism, as anti-realists, “postmodernists” and “anti-rationalists” have been doing recently, is tantamount to attacking and attemptingto overthrow the Western Rationalistic Tradition.34 Searle’s implicit rationale isthat if there is no External Realism, then there is no more Western RationalisticTradition. It is presumably this worry that makes defending External Realism sopressing for Searle:

So what difference does it make whether or not one says that one is a realist or an anti-realist? I actually think that philosophical theories make a tremendous difference to every aspect of our lives. (. . .) The first step in combating irrationalism . . . is a refutation of the argu-ments against external realism and a defense of external realism as a presupposition of large areasof discourse.35

One question raised by Searle’s claims about the role of External Realisminvolves the extent to which whole practices rely on or are defined by particularphilosophical ideals. This is an important question to consider, because numer-ous advocates of particular philosophical abstractions express enthusiasm, albeitalarmingly, if not threateningly, for their favored abstraction in the following gen-eralizable form: if there is no X (favored philosophical abstraction, such as God,absolute moral truths, and so on), then (1) the practices we cherish will collapse,(2) everything is permitted, (3) chaos will ensue, etc. Searle does the same,writing “without metaphysical realism, anything is permissible.”36

Leaving that for the reader to consider, two particular problems with Searle’sportrayal of the role of External Realism as the definitive conception of theWestern Rationalist Tradition are worth noting. Here is one problem. First, if wetake it for granted (agreeing with Searle) that External Realism is a necessary pre-supposition of communication, then External Realism is a necessary feature ofany tradition (because traditions require communication). However, in order forsome feature to be definitive of a thing, that feature must be (fairly) unique tothat thing. Therefore, External Realism cannot be the distinguishing feature (ordefinitive conception) of the Western Rationalistic Tradition, because ExternalRealism is a necessary feature of any tradition.

A second problem with Searle’s portrayal is that if it is true that ExternalRealism is a necessary presupposition of communication, then it is not clear why Searle feels the need to defend External Realism. If External Realism really is necessary, no argument from any anti-realist, “postmodernist,” or


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34 Searle, “Rationality and Realism” 76–79.35 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 197.36 John Searle, “ ‘The Storm Over the University’: An Exchange,” New York Review of Books

(February 14, 1991): 40.

“anti-rationalist could undermine External Realism, because their argumentswould necessarily presuppose, and thus reaffirm the “truth’ of, External Realism.

The weakness of Searle’s claim that External Realism is the definitive con-ception of the Western Rationalistic Tradition does not, however, undermine his External Realism thesis. Things do start to come apart, though, when its connection to the main argument of The Social Construction of Reality is stressed.

THE COMPLETE ARGUMENT

Searle acknowledges a limitation with his “transcendental argument” thatExternal Realism is a necessary presupposition of communication, or in otherwords, that “a public language presupposes a public world.”37 The argument, “ifvalid, is an answer to phenomenalist idealism but not to social constructionism.”38

There is a problem with Searle’s statements here that requires immediate atten-tion. It is not clear that Searle’s External Realism is a refutation of idealism,because elsewhere he suggests that External Realism is compatible with ideal-ism. As he says, even if it turned that everything was actually ideal in nature, thiswould still be a fact about reality independent of what we think about it:

For the realist, even if there were no material objects in fact, there would still be a representation-independent reality, for the nonexistence of material objets would just be one feature of that representation-independent reality.39

It would perhaps be more consistent for Searle to say that the transcendental argu-ment is a refutation of solipsism, but not idealism. But this is, for my purposes,a minor point.

The point Searle is explicitly conceding is that the transcendental argument“that a public language presupposes a public world is not a refutation of socialconstructionism, which, in Searle’s hands, is the thesis that all reality is sociallyconstructed. This is because many public realities, such as dollar bills and touch-downs, are ontologically subjective (or socially constructed), because their exis-tence depends on our institutions. “To complete the argument,” Searle adducesanother transcendental argument to the effect that “a socially constructed realitypresupposes a reality independent of all social constructions.”40 This is so, Searlewrites:

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37 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 191.38 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 190.39 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 157.40 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 191.

because there has to be something for the construction to be constructed out of. To construct money,property, and language, for example, there have to be the raw materials of bits of metal, paper,land, sounds, and marks, for example. And the raw materials cannot in turn be socially constructedwithout presupposing some even rawer materials out of which they are constructed, until eventu-ally we reach a bedrock of brute physical phenomena independent of all representations. The onto-logical subjectivity of the socially constructed reality requires an ontologically objective realityout of which it is constructed.41

What Searle argues in the first part (which is discussed in following sections)of The Construction of Social Reality 42 is that social realities are logically depen-dent on brute physical realities that are at some level independent of all socialconstructions and representations. This additional transcendental argument,which I will call the logical-dependency argument, seems to provide additionalsupport for the claim that there is a way things are that is totally independent ofus and our representations of it. This is how the two arguments of Searle’s bookconnect. Or is it the other way around? For all his criticisms about the sloppinessof his opponent’s arguments, Searle is perplexingly ambivalent about the overallstructure of his own argument. After laying out the logical-dependency argument,Searle writes: “It is now time to defend the contrast on which the [logical-dependency] analysis rests, to defend the idea that there is a reality totally inde-pendent of us.”43 But this idea just seems to be the conclusion, or at least a consequent, of the logical-dependency argument, not a premise of it. AlthoughSearle is careful to schematize the arguments of his opponents, he does not offera single schematization of his own argument, requiring the reader to sort out thecomplexities.

There are two ways to structure Searle’s argument that have occurred to me.The first is as a series of transcendental arguments, or as Searle says elsewhere,“a full scale transcendental deduction”:44

First transcendental argument: A subject’s language presupposes an intersubjective or public language.


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41 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 190–91.42 Searle’s argument for External Realism, which I covered first, is actually the second part of

Construction.43 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 149.44 An article published several years prior to The Construction of Social Reality was not, to

quote Searle more completely, “the ideal occasion for a full scale transcendental deduction of metaphysical realism; however I hope to develop this argument in more detail elsewhere.” JohnSearle, “ ‘The Storm Over the University’: An Exchange,” New York Review of Books (February14, 1991). Presumably, Searle’s The Construction of Social Reality is the occasion for this full scaletranscendental deduction, although Searle does not, as far as I can tell, indicate that this is so any-where in the book.

This is a refutation of solipsism.45

Second transcendental argument (the External Realism thesis): A public language presupposes apublic reality.

This is, according to Searle, a refutation of idealism, although as I have alreadymentioned, it is not clear that this is the case.

Third transcendental argument (the logical-dependency argument): A public reality presupposesan ontologically objective reality.

This is, according to Searle, a refutation of social constructionism.Although this is a nice, neat structure, it is not clear it is what Searle intends

or, even if it is, that it is viable. If this is the intended structure of Searle’s argument, it is unclear why he would say, after laying out the third transcenden-tal argument: “It is now time to defend the contrast on which the analysis rests,to defend the idea that there is a reality totally independent of us.”46 Again, this“idea that there is a reality totally independent of us,” which Searle claims supports the third transcendental argument, just is the conclusion of the third argument.

There is another reason to think that the second transcendental argument (theExternal Realism argument) should not be understood as supporting the third tran-scendental argument (the logical-dependency argument), contrary to what Searleindicates. Searle claims that External Realism is not a refutation of social con-structionism, because the transcendental argument for External Realism is simplythat a public world presupposes a public reality, and it could turn out that all suchrealities are socially constructed. In other words, External Realism is compatiblewith social constructionism. Searle then claims, in the passage quoted in the pre-vious paragraph, that the essential contrast between brute and social realities,what would have to be the case in order for social constructionism to be refuted,is supported by External Realism. But if Searle really means that ExternalRealism is compatible with social constructionism, then it is unclear how

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45 Notice that this transcendental deduction, whether or not it is actually Searle’s, starts not fromthought, like Descartes, but from language. Starting from thought can get one to subjectivity,because thought presupposes subjectivity (“I think, therefore I am”). However, this starting pointand subsequent move result in what Searle sees as the traps and dead-ends of epistemology—thedifficulties encountered in moving from subjectivity to the external world (radical skepticism) orto other minds is legion. Searle thinks he can avoid this dead-end by starting his transcendentaldeduction with a different given in Descartes’ thought experiment: language (“I think”).

46 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 149.

External Realism can undergird the very contrast that is supposed to refute socialconstructionism.

The second possible schematization of Searle’s overall argument is this:

The logical-dependency argument:

Premise 1: We live in one world. All realities are part of the same world.Premise 2: The fundamental features of the world are as described by the natural

sciences; we live in a world made entirely of physical particles in fields offorce.

Premise 3: There are social (or institutional or ontologically subjective) realitieswhose existence depends on us.

(Question: How do social realities fit into a world that is fundamentally physical?)

Conclusion 1: Social realities logically depend on (are constructed from) brutephysical realities that are not in any way socially constructed.

Ø The argument for External Realism:

Premise 4a (Conclusion 1): Social realities logically depend on (are con-structed from) brute physical realities that are not in any way socially constructed.

Premise 4b (Premise 3): There are social realities.Premise 5a: A public language presupposes a language-independent reality.Premise 5b: There is a public language.Premise 6a: Conceptual Relativism presupposes independent reality.Premise 6b: Conceptual Relativism is true.

Conclusion 2: There is a way things are that is totally independent of us and our representations (no commitment to specific content, no privileged descriptions).

According to this schematization, the logical-dependency argument is a tributaryargument that provides additional support for the main External Realism argu-ment. I think this is a more promising argumentative structure than the three-steptranscendental deduction, and it is the one that I will reference in the remainderof this article. However, it does have serious problems, which will be addressedin the sections that follow. It is to the framework of the logical-dependency argument that I now turn.


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CONSTRUCTING SOCIAL REALITY: FRAMEWORK PRESUPPOSITIONS

Searle begins his book with this sentence: “We live in exactly one world, nottwo or three or seventeen.”47 This statement, one can gather, is a response toKuhn’s infamous claim that when our paradigms change, so does our world.48

Regarding this one world, Searle writes: “As far as we currently know, the mostfundamental features of that world are as described by physics, chemistry, andthe other natural sciences.”49 Early in the first chapter, Searle writes:

The truth is, for us, most of our metaphysics is derived from physics (including the other naturalsciences). (. . .) Two features of our conception of reality are not up for grabs. (. . .) The atomictheory of matter and the evolutionary theory of biology.50

And along the same lines:

Here, then, are the bare bones of our ontology: We live in a world made up entirely of physicalparticles in fields of force.51

In these statements Searle is not stating definitively what the fundamental natureof reality is, but just that “for us,” “as far as we know,” the fundamental natureof reality is particles in fields of force. Definitive or not, the claims are confus-ing, because Searle also states that External Realism does not say how the worldis independently of us, but just that there is a way the world is independent ofus. In these sentences Searle seems to be saying something specific about howthe world is fundamentally, which, for all we know, means the same as “totallyindependent of us.” But before getting carried away, let us see where Searle goeswith these assertions.

Searle makes a distinction between social realities and brute physical realities.If people had never existed, there would still be physical realities, like molecules,

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47 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality xi.48 John Hund, on the other hand, interprets Searle’s introductory line as a response to Durkheim.

Hund thinks that Searle is wrong to think that there is one and only one world. Dogs, for instance,live in the world of physical realities, whereas we live in a world of both physical and institutionalrealities. However, Hund goes on to write something that could just as easily come out of Searle’scomputer: “This idea does not commit us to the absurdity that these two ‘worlds’ are not part ofthe same reality. This is just a manner of speech. These two worlds, or ‘levels’ of reality, are log-ically and conceptually interconnected (126).” This latter claim is precisely the one Searle arguesfor at length in The Construction of Social Reality. John Hund, “Searle’s The Construction of SocialReality,” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 28: (1998).

49 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality xi.50 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 6.51 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 7.

mountains, flora, and fauna. However, had people not existed, social realities, likemoney, home runs, and marriages, never would have existed, because social real-ities depend on us for their existence—they are socially constructed. Whereassocial realities are ontologically subjective, meaning that their existence dependson us, brute physical realities are ontologically objective, meaning that their exis-tence does not depend on us. This distinction also maps onto the distinctionbetween what Searle calls intrinsic features of reality and observer-relative fea-tures of reality. Whereas a mountain is an intrinsic feature of reality, its beauty isobserver-relative. Searle illustrates this distinction as follows:

From a God’s-eye view, from outside the world, all the features of the world would be intrinsic,including intrinsic relational features such as the feature that people in our culture regard such andsuch objects as screwdrivers. God could not see screwdrivers, cars, bathtubs, etc., because intrin-sically speaking there are no such things. Rather, God would see us treating certain objects asscrewdrivers, cars, bathtubs, etc. But from our standpoint, the standpoint of beings who are notgods but are inside the world that includes us as active agents, we need to distinguish those truestatements we make that attribute features to the world that exist quite independently of any atti-tude or stance we take, and those statements that attribute features that exist only relative to ourinterests, attitudes, stances, purposes, etc.52

This distinction between intrinsic and observer-relative features of reality isimportant, according to Searle, “because it is going to turn out that social realityin general can be understood only in light of this distinction.”53 It is with this distinction that Searle articulates what he calls the structure of social reality. Thisstructure, as we will see, involves hierarchical series of connections betweenintrinsic and observer-relative features of reality.

Having laid the groundwork, including his distinctions between brute andsocial realities, and intrinsic and observer-relative features of reality, Searledefines the question:

Here, then, are the bare bones of our ontology: We live in a world made up entirely of physicalparticles in fields of force. (. . .) Now the question is, how can we account for the existence ofsocial facts within that ontology?54

In other words:

Our aim is to assimilate social reality to our basic ontology of physics, chemistry, and biology. Todo this we need to show the continuous line that goes from molecules and mountains to screw-drivers, levers, and beautiful sunsets, and then to legislatures, money and nation-states.55


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52 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 12.53 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 12.54 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 7.55 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 41.

In what follows, Searle’s explanation of how social facts fit into a world that isfundamentally physical, along with its apparent connection to External Realism,is examined.

THE LOGICAL DEPENDENCE OF SOCIAL REALITY ON PHYSICAL REALITY

Searle accounts for social realities, like marriages and touchdowns, within aworld that consists fundamentally of particles in fields of force, by arguing thatall social realities logically depend on brute physical realities. These logicaldependencies are what Searle calls “constitutive rules” of the form X (brutereality) counts as Y (social reality) in context C. For example, a piece of greenpaper with certain dimensions and markings (the brute reality) can count as asocial reality—namely, money. Another example is, crossing a particular bound-ary with an inflated pigskin in hand (the brute physical reality) can count as asocial reality in the right context—specifically, it counts as a touchdown in a foot-ball game. Searle thinks that this sort of logical relationship holds between allsocial realities and brute realities. Were it not for this special “counts as” rela-tion, imposed by collective intentionality, there would be no social realities. Thisis because particular constitutive rules actually constitute social reality in the waythat the rules of chess, for instance, constitute that game. Were it not for thevarious rules of chess, there would be no social reality we call the game of chess.

Searle writes that constitutive rules should not be confused with what he callsregulative rules. Constitutive rules of chess are rules like, bishops can only movealong diagonals, players must alternate moves, only the horse can hop over pieces,etc. Constitutive rules actually constitute the practice of chess. If the constitutiverules are broken, then chess (proper) is no longer being played. Regulative rules,on the other hand, do not constitute the practice, but simply regulate it. So, forinstance, regulative rules during a chess tournament might be that players mustrefrain from making excessive noise, that they must be present at a designatedlocation at a designated time in order not to be disqualified, etc. Although a playercould break both of these regulative rules and still be playing chess, a player couldnot break any of the constitutive rules and still be playing chess (proper). IanHacking articulates the distinction this way: “Constitutive rules make possiblesome activity, while regulative rules tell how to conduct it, once the activity isrecognized or engaged in.”56

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56 Ian Hacking, “Searle, Reality, and the Social,” History of the Human Sciences, 10 (1997): 88. Fora criticism of Searle’s constitutive/regulative rule distinction, see David-Hillel Ruben, “JohnSearle’s The Construction of Social Reality,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, LVII(1997): 442–4.

Additionally, constitutive rules are not to be confused with conventions. Anexample of a convention of chess is that pawns are smaller than kings. One couldbreak this convention, by playing with pawns that are larger than kings, or bysubstituting pennies for pawns, and still be playing chess. However, were one toplay on a board with 100 squares, instead of 64, one would no longer be playingchess. Whereas piece size is conventional, board configuration is not.

A crucial feature of constitutive rules for Searle’s account is that they can be iterated.57 Consider again the constitutive rule that certain kinds of green paper count as money. The brute reality, green paper, is itself a status imposedon a logically prior, more brute reality—say pressed dyed fiber. Putting this in the form of a constitutive rule: pressed dyed fiber counts as green paper. Furthermore, we could say that pressed dyed fiber is itself a status imposed on alogically prior, more brute reality—say an amalgamation of organic and inorganicmolecules—and so on down to a brute physical reality that is totally devoid ofthe imposition of status functions by collective agency. It is in this way that allsocial realities bottom out in totally brute physical realities. In Searle’s words,the hierarchy of constitutive rules “has to bottom out in phenomena whose existence is not a matter of human agreement. (. . .) Eventually one has to reacha rock bottom of something that is not itself any form of status-function.”58

Furthermore:

It could not be the case, as some antirealists have maintained, that all facts are institutional facts,that there are no brute facts, because the analysis of the structure of institutional facts reveals thatthey are logically dependent on brute facts.59

What Searle does in this argument is substantiate the claim that some realitiesare not just causally independent of us and our representations, but in the elusivemetaphysical sense, totally representation-independent. Credible anti-realists donot claim that natural realities, like mountains, are causally dependent on us. Con-sequently, a challenge for realists, if they are to distinguish markedly their posi-tion from the mundane realism which anti-realists accept, is to articulate the sensein which some realities are not just causally, but totally independent of us. Searlearticulates this total representation-independence as logical independence. Theentities that are logically independent of our representations are the same entitiesthat are totally independent of us in the robust metaphysical sense. As proof thatSearle is using these senses of independence interchangeably, consider the fol-lowing passages. “Realism . . . says that there exists a reality totally independent


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57 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 80.58 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 55–56.59 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 56.

of our representations.”60 “Realism is the view that there is a way things are thatis logically independent of all human representations.”61

Searle argues that if it is assumed that socially constructed reality does notrequire nonsocially constructed reality, then logical absurdities ensue. He writes:

Because the logical form of the creation of socially constructed reality consists in iterations of thestructure X counts as Y in C, the iterations must bottom out in an X element that is not itself aninstitutional construction. Otherwise you would get infinite regress or circularity.62

In other words, if you agree (1) that there is a distinction to be drawn betweensocial and brute realities, even if it is only a matter of degree, and you accept (2)Searle’s story about the logical, structural relationship between social and bruterealities, then you are forced to accept (3) that there must be some realities onthe “brute” side that are not in any way socially constructed, that are not in turnlogically dependent on even more brute realities. This is so, because believingotherwise means either that there is no end to the logical dependency, or that some social realities could be shown to be eventually logically dependent onthemselves.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

That there are rough and ready distinctions to be drawn between social andbrute realities, seems wholly unproblematic, so I will focus instead on Searle’sstory about the logical, structural relationship between social and brute realities.Central to Searle’s story is the claim that brute realities, like green paper, getcounted as social realities, like dollar bills. However, it is often the case, inabstract conversations for instance, that the opposite happens: that a social reality(like a dollar bill) gets counted as a brute reality (a meaningless sheet of processedfiber). Such examples suggest that Searle’s logic supports the conclusion oppo-site of that drawn by him: that brute realities can logically depend on social real-ities, or at least that the logical dependence goes both ways. Whereas Searleassumes that the X term is always given “brutally,” phenomenologists like HubertDreyfus contend that things are typically given already meaningful.63 Dollar billsare not typically presented as green paper and subsequently counted as dollars,but are presented as dollars. Searle recognizes this point, though:

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60 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 155.61 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 155.62 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 191. The italics are mine.63 See, for instance, Hubert L. Dreyfus, “Phenomenological Description Versus Rational Recon-

struction,” Revue Internationale de Philosophie, 217 (2001).

In most cases it is harder to see objects as just natural phenomena, stripped of their functionalroles, than it is to see our surroundings in terms of their socially defined functions. So childrenlearn to see moving cars, dollar bills, and full bathtubs; and it is only by force of abstraction thatthey can see these as masses of metal in linear trajectories, cellulose fibers with green and graystains, or enamel-covered iron concavities containing water.64

This recognition leads phenomenologists to ask the following questions. Why not take social realities for granted and ask how we can account for particles infields of force within the model of intersubjective, immersed coping? Why takethe abstract, scientific model for granted instead of the common sense phenom-enology of everyday experience? These questions challenge Searle’s fundamen-tal ontology, to which he seems firmly committed. To question it would be toengage in a radically different project. Short of that, is there any response openfor Searle?

Searle does have a compelling response at his disposal, and it involves nec-essary and sufficient conditions. Although it is true that a dollar bill can count as a meaningless piece of paper, this is not the same as saying that being a pieceof paper is logically dependent on being a dollar bill. This is because being adollar bill is only a sufficient condition for being a piece of paper, but not a necessary condition, whereas being a piece of paper is a necessary condition forbeing a dollar bill, but not a sufficient condition. In other words, in order to havedollar bills you need paper as raw material, but in order to have paper, you donot need dollar bills as raw, building material. In Searle’s words, the status func-tion “dollar bill” is imposed on the paper by the public (or the intentionality ofcollective agency), but the status function of paper does not need to be imposedon a dollar bill, because a dollar bill already is paper quite independent of publicagreement. In Searle’s words, “the Y term has to assign a new status that theobject does not already have just in virtue of satisfying the X term.”65 It is forthese reasons that logical dependence appears to be a one-way street. And if so,then perhaps Searle is justified in claiming that the hierarchies of constitutiverules have “to bottom out in phenomena whose existence is not a matter of humanagreement.”66

However, numerous commentators are skeptical about the truth and utility ofSearle’s claim that social realities bottom out in wholly brute realities. ThomasOsborne is skeptical of the utility of Searle’s claim. He writes:

In the social world we have moved so far from the anchors of material reality . . . that we are likeone of those cartoon characters that has run off the end of a cliff and is still running happily along


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64 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 4.65 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 44.66 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 55–56.

in mid-air. It is true that the ground is there somewhere, but it may be an awfully long way down.Is it really any comfort that Searle should insist that, if we fell far enough, we should eventuallyreach the ground? That is the difference with the constructionists. They think that, given the groundis so far down (assuming, indeed, that there is only one ground), it doesn’t make much sense torefer to it for our bearings at all.67

David-Hillel Ruben, on the other hand, is skeptical of the truth of Searle’s claimthat social realities bottom out in wholly brute realities. He writes: “I can findnowhere in the book where Searle offers a constitutive rule meeting this require-ment.”68 According to Ruben, Searle does not and cannot cite a brute fact that isnot just relatively brute, but 100% brute. Ruben writes:

Amongst the facts required for any institutional fact, there will always be other institutional facts.Reference to institutions will always and ineliminably appear on the left-hand side of these ruleswith the form “X in C counts as Y (where ‘Y’ is institutional)”.69

Ruben concludes that “institutional facts . . . ineliminably creep back into thebase, rendering these accounts circular.”70 Circularity is something that Searleclearly intends to avoid. The example that Ruben marshals to demonstrate the cir-cularity is that a green piece of paper with the right sorts of markings (from theU.S. Treasury Department) (the brute fact) counts as a dollar bill (the social orinstitutional fact) in the context of global commerce. In this case, it is clear thatthe brute fact includes institutional elements, namely, the elements of authentic-ity from the U.S. Treasury Department. However, in defense of Searle, there areplenty of other examples Ruben neglects that avoid this alleged circularity. In hisresponse to Ruben, Searle cites the example of a line of stones counting as aboundary.71 Another example is a rock counting as a paperweight. In both cases,it is hard to see, as Ruben maintains, that the line of rocks, or the individual rock,by themselves admit of institutional influence.

But is it Searle’s intention to argue that things like rocks are totally indepen-dent of us and our representations of them, that such things comprise the funda-mental, intrinsic nature of reality? Searle is not exactly clear about what theintrinsic features of reality are. Furthermore, Searle, the External Realist, is notentitled to specifying what the intrinsic features of reality are. Although, in thefirst part of The Construction of Social Reality, Searle certainly suggests what the

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67 Thomas Osborne, “The Limits of Ontology,” History of the Human Science, 10 (1997): 101–102.68 Ruben, “John Searle’s The Construction of Social Reality” 445.69 Ruben, “John Searle’s The Construction of Social Reality” 445.70 Ruben, “John Searle’s The Construction of Social Reality” 445.71 John Searle, “Responses to Critics of The Social Construction of Reality,” Philosophy and

Phenomenological Research, LVII (1997): 456.

entities that are totally independent of us are like, and this is where he might getinto trouble.

John Hund, in his review of Searle’s book, sees Searle’s ambiguity about theintrinsic features of reality as especially problematic.

The basic problem with Searle’s account of realism . . . is that he advances several different, andinconsistent, conceptions of “intrinsic features” of the world. On one account, they are brute facts.On another account, they are unknowable noumena, and on yet another account, they are highlyidealized constructions . . . [such as] “fields of force,” “atoms,” “molecules.”72

According to Hund, it is not clear what Searle means by totally independentreality, because he gives various examples that appear incompatible. First, areboth mountains and the subatomic particles of which they are composed intrin-sically real, or are the subatomic particles more real than the mountain? Second,Searle suggests that the “externally real” is merely a formal placeholder for thatwhich is independent of our representations; but if so, what are we to make ofSearle’s specific suggestions about what is real? Third, it seems that any specificclaim made about what is intrinsically real conflicts with Searle’s other claim thathe is not privileging a particular description or worldview.

Searle invites these confusions. On the one hand, Searle states that the funda-mental features of reality are as described by the natural sciences. On the otherhand, he states that the hierarchy of logical dependency entails that there must bea portion of reality that is totally brute, not in any way a matter of human agree-ment. The reader seems impelled to believe that Searle thinks that subatomic particles in fields of force comprise the level of reality that is totally, logicallyindependent of us and our representations of it. But this contradicts Searle’s claimthat External Realism “does not say how things are, but only that there is a waythat they are.”73

If Searle’s logical-dependency argument is supposed to support his ExternalRealism argument, as indicated in my second schematization of his overall argu-ment, then there might be another problem. The argument for the logical depen-dence of social realities on brute realities, which rests on assumptions about theway things are fundamentally, is adduced in support of External Realism, whichexpressly prohibits such assumptions. This does not by itself undermine the Exter-nal Realism argument, because the two other pieces of support remain intact.However, it casts serious uncertainty on the connection between the ExternalRealism argument and the logical-dependency argument.


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72 John Hund, “Searle’s The Construction of Social Reality,” 125.73 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 155.

The assumption about reality being fundamentally physical (particles in fieldsof force) also seems to corrupt his logical-dependence argument in its own right.From this assumption, Searle asks how social realities fit into a world that is fundamentally physical. Searle then shows the logical, structural relationshipbetween brute and social realities. Searle concludes that the iterations of logicaldependency must bottom out in a totally brute reality; but this conclusion seemsto be just a restatement of the original assumption that at some level the world isfundamentally physical, and in some way social realities are built upon this foun-dation. Ian Hacking also senses that something is awry with Searle’s reasoninghere, writing that, “Searle gives the impression of arguing in a circle.”74

That Searle concludes with the assumption with which he starts, if this is indeedthe case, provides reason to think that the original assumption requires defense.There is additional reason to think this is so. The original assumption is that theworld is fundamentally physical, and more specifically, subatomic particles infields of force. However, what it means to be fundamental, let alone what is fun-damental, is not a settled, undisputed, objective matter. Several of Searle’s com-mentators have disputed his claims about fundamental reality. John Hund writes:

Searle says that the bare-bones of his ontology is that we live in a world made up entirely of “phys-ical particles in fields of force.” But what kind of world is this? Dogs don’t live in that world. Itis only people who think they live in a world of intangible “fields” of “force.”75

Mary Midgley writes:

But in what sense is that particular way of describing the world magisterial? How are the featuresof the world described by physics more fundamental than other features? Fundamental to what?(. . .) [Searle] seems still to grant physics some kind of privileged access to reality.76

Searle cannot simply state, uncontroversially, that fundamental reality is com-prised of particles in fields of force, because claims about the fundamental natureof reality are extremely controversial. In fact, such claims are at the heart of therealism/anti-realism debate.

HOW DID SEARLE GET INTO THIS MESS?

There is one theory worth considering about why Searle countenances theseostensible inconsistencies, and that is that he misunderstands the status of “exter-nal reality.” Searle writes that “institutional facts can only exist within systems

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74 Hacking, “Searle, Reality, and the Social” 91.75 Hund, “Searle’s The Construction of Social Reality,” 126.76 Mary Midgley, “Skimpole Unmasked,” History of the Human Sciences, 10 (1997): 96.

of constitutive rules.”77 Brute facts (or realities), on the other hand, do not requiresystems of constitutive rules within which to exist. Whereas realities about thegame of chess require human society, realities such as Mt. Everest do not. Butwhat status does external reality, technically construed, have? We know thatSearle claims that external reality has the status of a necessary presupposition.What I will endeavor to show, using Searle’s own logical convention, is that exter-nal reality is a status that is imposed upon everyday brute realities, or to the sameeffect, that external reality only exists within systems of constitutive rules.

This seemingly bizarre claim is a possibility in virtue of the fact that what isultimately “external,” just as what is “fundamental,” is not settled. Let us just say for the sake of argument that Mt. Everest is considered to be part of mind-independent, external reality. Interestingly, this claim can be translated into theform of a constitutive rule: Mt. Everest (the brute reality) counts as intrinsic, mind-independent, external reality (presumably, the more social, institutional reality) inthe context of Searle’s account. In this case, the status of being part of totally mind-independent, external reality is imposed on Mt. Everest, presumably by a collec-tive agreement that Searle is seeking by writing his book. If this is an appropriateformulation of a constitutive rule, then it would seem that external reality (inSearle’s technical sense) is (merely) an observer-relative, institutional reality.

There is another reason to think that external reality (in Searle’s technicalsense) is an observer-relative, institutional reality. Searle claims that ExternalRealism is a (necessary) presupposition of communicative practices. True as thismay be, it does not entail, as Searle acknowledges, precisely which entities arepart of external reality. As has already been mentioned, a problem in Searle’sbook is that he recommends a variety of candidates for external reality: moun-tains, rocks, plants, animals, particles in fields of force, etc. That Searle is rec-ommending various entities is important. Whenever Searle recommends aparticular reality as “external,” the concept of “external reality” assumes the roleof an institutional fact: what is taken to be “external reality” depends on ourchoices, interests, purposes, and so on. This is actually not surprising, because,as I have stressed, the meaning of such notions as “absolute,” “intrinsic,” and“fundamental” is not settled. What this suggests is that a misunderstanding aboutthe role of a recommendation has misguided Searle’s reasoning about realism.

A closely related way to understand Searle’s project is as an attempt at articu-lating the essence (or intrinsic nature) of reality (as a whole). In which case, wecould imagine Searle maintaining that the essence of reality, that which is ulti-mately real, is particles in fields of force. Searle was heavily influenced by histeacher, John Austin, who was in turn heavily influenced by Wittgenstein. Onegets a clear sense reading Searle that he has absorbed many of Wittgenstein’s


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77 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 28.

philosophical observations and insights. But there are a few notable disagree-ments between Searle and Wittgenstein; one of them revolves around the conceptof “essence.”

Wittgenstein was skeptical about essences. In a famous passage, Wittgensteinwrites that games do not share an essential element in common, but rather sharefamily resemblances of crisscrossing similarities and differences. In a passagethat reveals Searle’s disagreement with Wittgenstein on this matter, Searle pro-vides what he calls “an answer to Wittgenstein on games.”78 Searle writes:

Famously, Wittgenstein argued that there is no essence marked by the word “game.” But all thesame, there are certain common features possessed by paradigmatic games, such as those in com-petitive sports—baseball, football, tennis, etc. In each case the game consists of a series of attemptsto overcome certain obstacles that have been created for the purpose of trying to overcome them.Each side in the game tries to overcome the obstacles and prevent the other side from over-coming them.79

My purpose in bringing this to light is not to suggest that one or the other is righton their view of essentialism, but rather to show Searle’s sympathies with it.

This is no trivial matter. It is Searle’s commitment to essentialism that leads tothe biggest, albeit subtlest, problems in his account. Searle says repeatedly thathe is not an ontological dualist, that he rejects the Cartesian schism between mindand body, the Kantian dualism between the phenomenal and noumenal worlds,and the related dualism between mind and world.80 Nonetheless, Searle insists ona distinction between social and brute reality.

Hacking points out that for Searle’s argument about logical dependency towork, Searle does not need to show what is totally brute, or even that there arerealities that are totally brute.81 Searle just needs that there be a relative differ-ence, a matter of degree, a contrast to be drawn, between brute and social, whichthere clearly is. For instance, it is intuitively plausible that a rock (which cancount as a paperweight) is at least more brute than a paperweight, or that a moun-tain ridgeline (which can count as a country’s border) is at least more brute thana country’s border. However, Searle, as the following passage indicates, expectsmore than a mere contrast:

Because the logical form of the creation of socially constructed reality consists in iterations of thestructure X counts as Y in C, the iterations must bottom out in an X element that is not itself aninstitutional construction. Otherwise you would get infinite regress or circularity.82

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78 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 103 (footnote).79 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 103.80 Searle, “Replies to Critics of The Construction of Social Reality” 104–105.81 Hacking, “Searle, Reality, and the Social” 84.82 Searle, The Construction of Social Reality 191.

The claim of interest is that “the iterations must bottom out in an X element thatis not itself an institutional construction.” Searle expects an essential differencebetween social and brute realities—that at the endpoint of the iterations will be an X element that is 100% brute, not just relatively brute. But Hacking sug-gests that all that needs to follow, in order that “the logical form of the creationof socially constructed reality consists in iterations of the structure X counts asY in C,” is just that any X element has to be more brute than the correlative Yelement.

Searle worries that if it were not the case that iterations of constitutive rulesbottom out in an X element that is 100% brute, then “you would get infiniteregress or circularity.” It is worth considering that, in this case at least, infiniteregress is unobjectionable. An analogous inference is this: if you break somethingdown into constituent parts, any individual part must be smaller than the originalsomething. This physical structure is iterable, in that any one of the individualparts can in turn be broken down into smaller constituent parts. Now, does itfollow that these “iterations” must “bottom out” in an element that is indivisible?Physicists do not agree on the answer to this question. One problem is that at themicrophysical level, things do not divide in the same way that things at the macro-physical level do. The point is that it is not obvious that the physical structure ofthings “bottoms out.” Analogously, it is not clear that the iterations of logicalstructure bottom out either. One way around this objection for Searle is to simplystate what the bottom realities are, which he does from time to time. But this, asI have already mentioned, raises a host of other problems.

CONCLUSION

If Searle abandons an essential contrast between brute and social realities, andjust sticks with the far more modest contrast, then certain advantages follow. Hecan avoid the trouble of specifying any facts that are 100% brute, can remain con-sistent with his non-committal External Realism, and can perhaps avoid arguingin a circle. There is one serious disadvantage Searle sees clearly, though: theaccount would not be a refutation of social constructionism.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of Searle’s account is its conflation ofseveral distinguishable kinds of realism, which he calls by a variety of names,including Realism, Metaphysical Realism, Scientific Realism, and ExternalRealism. He (1) says that his realism cannot say anything specific about the intrin-sic nature of reality, (2) gives reason to think that pretty much any physical objectis part of the intrinsic nature of reality, and (3) suggests that the intrinsic natureof reality is a status reserved for subatomic particles in fields of force. These arethree significantly different positions that require separation.


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An earlier and considerably shorter version of this paper was presented to the Society for the Realist/Antirealist discussion at the 2003 Eastern DivisionMeeting of the American Philosophical Association, for which I would like tothank the convener John Rose. I would also like to thank Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside) for copious comments on number of versions of this paper, andPaul Hoffman (UC Riverside) for organizing a discussion of the paper at UCRiverside.

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