An Illuminating Exchange: The Construction of Social Reality

A Two-Levelled Ontology In The Construction of Social Reality, John Searle argues for a two-level ontology along the following lines. Facts on the lower level – which he calls brute facts – can exist independently of human beings and their institutions. Facts on the upper level, which he calls institutional facts, depend on human institutions and above all on an associated ‘collective intentionality’. The existence of the Planet Earth is a brute fact, the existence of Utah is an institutional fact. As Searle confesses, there is a sort of magic involved when ‘we impose rights, responsibilities, obligations, duties, privileges, entitlements, penalties, authorizations, permissions ... in order to regulate relations between people’