Making the Social World

Structure of Human Civilization
1. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-0-19-969526-3
Verlag: Oxford Univ PR

Buch, Englisch, 224 Seiten, Format (B × H): 151 mm x 233 mm, Gewicht: 343 g

One of the world's leading philosophers, Searle has shaped the way we think about mind and language.
Here he investigates the way words create intangible but vital 'social realities' such as money, property, government, marriage, human rights
Written in the lively, witty style for which he is famous
Groundbreaking work on a subject that Searle pioneered
Will be enjoyed by anyone interested in the nature of the human world, whatever their background

The renowned philosopher John Searle reveals the fundamental nature of social reality. What kinds of things are money, property, governments, nations, marriages, cocktail parties, and football games? Searle explains the key role played by language in the creation, constitution, and maintenance of social reality.

We make statements about social facts that are completely objective, for example: Barack Obama is President of the United States, the piece of paper in my hand is a twenty-dollar bill, I got married in London, etc. And yet these facts only exist because we think they exist. How is it possible that we can have factual objective knowledge of a reality that is created by subjective opinions? This is part of a much larger question: How can we give an account of ourselves, with our peculiar human traits DS mind, reason, freedom, society - in a world that we know independently consists of mindless, meaningless particles? How can we account for our social and mental existence in a realm of brute physical facts?
In answering this question, Searle avoids postulating different realms of being, a mental and a physical, or worse yet, a mental, a physical, and a social. There is just one reality: Searle shows how the human reality fits into that one reality. Mind, language, and civilization are natural products of the basic facts of the physical world described by physics, chemistry and biology. Searle explains how language creates and maintains the elaborate structures of human social institutions. These institutions serve to create and distribute power relations that are pervasive and often invisible. These power relations motivate human actions in a way that provides the glue that holds human civilization together. Searle shows how this account illuminates human rationality, free will, political power, and human rights. Our social world is a world created and maintained by language.

Zielgruppe

Anyone interested in the relations between language, mind, and society.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Searle

Searle, John

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Theorie, Politische Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sozialphilosophie, Politische Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Moderne Philosophische Disziplinen Philosophie des Geistes, Neurophilosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1: The Purpose of this Book
2: Intentionality
3: Collective Intentionality and the Assignment of Function
4: Language as Bilogical and Social
5: The General Theory of Institutions and Institutional Facts: Language and Social Reality
6: Free Will, Rationality and Institutional Facts
7: Deontic, Background, Political and Other

Über Autor(innen)

Searle, John
John Searle, Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, is one of the most eminent contemporary philosophers. Educated at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, he taught at Christ Church Oxford before moving to Berkeley, where he has been teaching since 1959. His eighteen published books include Speech Acts (1969), Expression and Meaning (1979), Intentionality (1983), The Rediscovery of the Mind (1992), The Construction of Social Reality (1995), and Rationality in Action (2002). Among his many prizes and awards he received the Jean Nicod prize in 2000 and the National Humanities Medal in 2004.

John Searle, University of California, Berkeley

John Searle, Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, is one of the most eminent contemporary philosophers. Educated at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, he taught at Christ Church Oxford before moving to Berkeley, where he has been teaching since 1959. His eighteen published books include Speech Acts (1969), Expression and Meaning (1979), Intentionality (1983), The Rediscovery of the Mind (1992), The Construction of Social Reality (1995), and Rationality in Action (2002). Among his many prizes and awards he received the Jean Nicod prize in 2000 and the National Humanities Medal in 2004.