Product Description

In The Construction of Social Reality, John Searle argues that there are two kinds of facts--some that are independent of human observers, and some that require human agreement.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28339 in Books
• Published on: 1997-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

About the Author
John Searle is the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. He was awarded the Jean Nicod Prize in 2002 and the National Humanities Medal in 2004.

Customer Reviews

Searle does get it!
I'm afraid it's the reviewer from Paris who just doesn't get it. Searle quite clearly acknowledges that the concept of "mountain" in mind-dependent or socially constructed. However what he is at pains to point out is that the entity which our concept "mountain" describes is mind-independent.

This is a beautifully written book, lucid, clear with a light flowing prose style - so different from many of the writings it critiques. You don't necessarily have to agree with Searle to admire this book - what is so admirable is that he states his position with such clarity that there is at least scope for rational agreement/disagreement.

Social Construction without the Ideology
This book is another one of Searle's rigorous and complex effort at philosophizing, and yet one of his most readable. I think we are indebted to his research assistant for the clarity of locution and punctuation -- two areas where Searle can be vulnerable. This book also uses many concepts discussed at length in two of his other books: "Speech Acts" and "Intentionality." Having read these two other books, while definitely helpful, is not necessary, as Searle is kind enough to describe his meanings and references as he goes along. And he goes along at quite a rapid clip. This is, moreover, one of those books one cannot afford to skip a sentence without serious impairment of further understanding.

With these caveats in mind, I highly recommend this tour of Searle's defense of naive realism in modern analytic terms. He is highly analytic, and builds quite a fortress that he is pained to defend against criticisms of circularity. Nowhere is this charge more appropriate than in his defense of language as simultaneously being an "institutional" and "brute" fact. Each reader will have to decide whether or not he succeeds, but, if he has failed, it is not for a lack of effort.

Of all Searle's books, this is the one I enjoyed the most. Searle is an excellent analytic philosopher, but a grammarian he's not. His lack of grammatical discipline usually interferes with his philosophizing and frequently plagues his other works, but is completely remedied in this book. It's not an "elegant" work, by any means, but it is clear, concise, and comprehensible. His arguments are thoroughly explained, developed, and explored, so that even a novice could follow his impeccable logic. And, there are an abundance of arguments, new linguistic devices, and formulations and reformulation of his ideas to sustain his central motif: Objective reality is objectively real.

This is a great display of analytic thoroughness, coupled with a generous amplification of his ideas. A truly "fun" read.

Clear Treatment of Difficult Issues
This is an impressive work by the lucid John Searle. This work is relatively brief but contains Searle's insightful treatment of both social reality and a cogent defense of realism, the idea that there is a reality independent of human construction. This book repays careful reading. Not because it is difficult to understand, to the contrary, Searle is a very clear writer with a real talent for presenting useful examples. Rather, Searle's arguments are simple but often have substantial implications whose importance emerges only on reflection. In this book, Searle describes the likely underpinnings of social, as opposed to physical reality. He develops very interesting analyses of how these two spheres differ and how we differ in our relation to them. He shows also the relationship between them. Searle's treatment of social constructionism is particularly powerful and demonstrates the implicit contradictions and sterility of this faddish ideology. Searle is particularly concerned with maintaining a high level of rational discourse in intellectual life. His work is a model in this respect.