"For me, we are all animals, biological beasts; we share with all sorts of
other animals
the capacity for collective intentionality, and with collective intentionality
you get social facts automatically. For me, a social fact is
simply any case of collective intentionality involving two or more
animals. Institutional facts are more interesting, because they involve
a deontic component, and with that deontic component comes the
requirement of language. Smith says that I have “presupposed a rule-positing
society, without ever asking how this society and its rule-positing
practices and contexts come about.” This is not quite right.
I presuppose a society of biological beasts capable of collective
intentionality,
and evolution gives me that for free. I also presuppose
another capacity given to us by evolution, namely, the capacity to
symbolize. That is an interesting and essential capacity, and one I
have attempted to analyze in some depth (see John R. Searle, Intentionality).
But now what I want to know is: How do we get from
these basic biological capacities to cultural institutional phenomena
such as money, property, marriage, and government?"
(John R. Searle)
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