Searlean Reflections on Sacred Mountains

Abstract

Error theories hold that claims about sacred objects are uniformly false when (and because) their existence is supposed to depend on the occurrence of highly implausible supernatural events involved in their creation or causal history. It is therefore an illusion to believe that the concept of being sacred corresponds to a real property. Social constructionists maintain that sacred entities are constructs of concepts, discourses, or practices, just like gods, angels, witches, and devils. Claims about sacred objects are therefore uniformly true. I present an institutional account of sacred objects as covert institutional entities, and distinguish between true beliefs that help create the institutional facts and false beliefs about their origin.