A Behavioural Critique of Searle's Theory of Institutions

Abstract

In The Construction of Social Reality (Searle 1995) and in several subsequent works, John Searle has developed an extremely elegant and original theory about institutions. Moreover, that book has reinvigorated an old discussion on the ontology of the social world that languished in obscure sociological treatises. Searle likes to present his theory of institutional facts as a purely analytical inquiry about the logical structure of institutional reality. Precisely because his task is philosophical in nature, he feels that he can proceed without paying much attention to positive theories in the social sciences about the emergence and functioning of institutions. Actual institutional facts (the existence of money, people getting married, etc.) appear as illustrations of a highly abstract theory, not as objects of empirical scrutiny. His goal is elucidatory, not explanatory. He wants to make clear how institutions can be constructed, how institutional reality is possible within the physical world, not under what conditions institutions survive, or why different societies have different institutional orders, or how institutions evolve and change. However, this sharp separation between philosophical and positive theories about institutions is not always possible or desirable. I want to argue in this chapter that a closer look at positive theories about institutions and rules shows that Searle’s philosophical analysis is not necessarily wrong, but onesided and incomplete. This is due, in my opinion, to the fact that Searle neglects certain kinds of institutional facts (those that have distributional consequences and entail conflicts) and privileges some others (such as conventions that serve as coordinating devices). It appears sometimes as if Searle were trying to accommodate all institutional reality into the categories that are useful to understand one fundamental but very peculiar institution, language. As I explain later, it is not by chance that Searle’s favourite example of an institutional fact is the existence of money. Money, as a mean of exchange, shares with language some crucial features that can by no means be extrapolated to institutions in general. Before going into details, I want to present a sketch of the argument. I start with two separate claims. The first one is about the distinction between regulative