Conventions of Trust and Institutional Facts

2020 ◽  
pp. 81-89
Author(s):  
Jennifer Trusted
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Facts

What Is an Institution?

2007 ◽  
pp. 5-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Searle
Keyword(s):  
Physical Structure ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Collective Intentionality ◽  
Institutional Facts ◽  
Institutional Fact ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Creation ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Typical Point

The author claims that an institution is any collectively accepted system of rules (procedures, practices) that enable us to create institutional facts. These rules typically have the form of X counts as Y in C, where an object, person, or state of affairs X is assigned a special status, the Y status, such that the new status enables the person or object to perform functions that it could not perform solely in virtue of its physical structure, but requires as a necessary condition the assignment of the status. The creation of an institutional fact is, thus, the collective assignment of a status function. The typical point of the creation of institutional facts by assigning status functions is to create deontic powers. So typically when we assign a status function Y to some object or person X we have created a situation in which we accept that a person S who stands in the appropriate relation to X is such that (S has power (S does A)). The whole analysis then gives us a systematic set of relationships between collective intentionality, the assignment of function, the assignment of status functions, constitutive rules, institutional facts, and deontic powers.

Declarations and Status Functions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirk Ludwig
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Institutional Facts ◽  
Collective Acceptance ◽  
Recent Claim

Chapter 12 evaluates, in the light of the analysis of status functions in previous chapters, a recent claim by Searle that all institutional facts, and so all status functions, are created by declarative speech acts. An example of a declaration is an employer saying “You’re fired” to an employee and thereby making it the case that he is fired. The chapter argues that while declarations are often used, given background conventions in a community, to impose status functions on objects, they are not necessary, and that more generally the idea that status functions are imposed by representing that object as having them is mistaken, in the light of the earlier analysis of collective acceptance as a matter of members of a community having appropriate we-intentions or conditional we-intentions directed at the relevant things.

scholarly journals Reflections on the Ontology of Money

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Uskali Mäki
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Structure ◽  
Causal Powers ◽  
Social Convention ◽  
Institutional Facts ◽  
Collective Belief

Abstract The suggestions outlined here include the following. Money is a bundle of institutionally sustained causal powers. Money is an institutional universal instantiated in generic currencies and particular money tokens. John Searle’s account of institutional facts is not helpful for understanding the nature of money as an institution (while it may help to illuminate aspects of the nature of currencies and money particulars). The money universal is not a social convention in David Lewis’s sense (while currencies and money particulars are characterized by high degrees of conventionality). The existence of the money universal is dependent on a larger institutional structure and cannot be understood in terms of collective belief or acceptance or agreement separately focusing on money. These claims have important implications for realism about money.

scholarly journals The non-existence of institutional facts

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Friedrich Christoph Dörge ◽  
Matthias Holweger
Keyword(s):  
Explanatory Gap ◽  
Standard View ◽  
Institutional Facts ◽  
Monetary Value ◽  
Tacit Belief ◽  
Vladimir Putin ◽  
Thomas Theorem

AbstractThat certain paper bills have monetary value, that Vladimir Putin is the president of Russia, and that Prince Philip is the husband of Queen Elizabeth II: such facts are commonly called ‘institutional facts’ (IFF). IFF are, by definition, facts that exist by virtue of collective recognition (where collective recognition can be direct or indirect). The standard view or tacit belief is that such facts really exist. In this paper we argue, however, that they really do not—they really are just well-established illusions. We confront realism about IFF with six criteria of existence, three established and three less so but highly intuitive. We argue that they all tell against the existence of IFF. An obvious objection to IFF non-realism is that since people’s behaviour clearly reflects the existence of IFF, denying their existence leaves an explanatory gap. We reject this argument by introducing a variant of the so-called ‘Thomas Theorem,’ which says that when people collectively recognize a fact as existing, they largely behave accordingly, regardless of whether that fact really exists or not.

WHAT IS MONEY? AN ALTERNATIVE TO SEARLE'S INSTITUTIONAL FACTS

2011 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. P. Smit ◽  
Filip Buekens ◽  
Stan du Plessis
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
John Searle ◽  
Institutional Facts ◽  
Natural Objects ◽  
Existent Problem

In The Construction of Social Reality (1995), John Searle develops a theory of institutional facts and objects, of which money, borders and property are presented as prime examples. These objects are the result of us collectively intending certain natural objects to have a certain status, i.e. to ‘count as’ being certain social objects. This view renders such objects irreducible to natural objects. In this paper we propose a radically different approach that is more compatible with standard economic theory. We claim that such institutional objects can be fully understood in terms of actions and incentives, and hence the Searlean apparatus solves a non-existent problem.

Metaphysical Grounding

Philosophy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Raven
Keyword(s):  
Recent Literature ◽  
Phenomenal Character ◽  
Institutional Facts ◽  
Metaphysical Grounding ◽  
In Virtue Of

Metaphysical ground is supposed to be a distinctive metaphysical kind of determination. It is or underwrites constitutive explanations. These explanations answer questions asking in virtue of what something is so. For example, suppose that an act is pious just in case it is loved by the gods. Following Socrates, one might still ask whether an act is pious because the gods love it or whether it is loved by the gods because it is pious. This may be interpreted as a question of ground. Then, one answer is that what the gods love grounds what is pious. And an alternative answer is that what is pious grounds what the gods love. Either way, Socrates’s question concerns what something’s being pious consists in, or what it holds in virtue of, or what grounds it. Once one has the notion of ground, one will likely find it involved in many of philosophy’s big questions. In ethics, the question might be whether an action’s maximizing goodness grounds its rightness. In epistemology, the question might be whether a process producing a belief grounds its justification. In language, the question might whether what a speaker means in uttering a sentence grounds its meaning. In law, the question might be whether social and institutional facts ground the legal facts. In metaphysics, the question might be whether physical facts ground all the rest. In mind, the question might be whether a representation’s content grounds its phenomenal character. The list could go on. The extraordinary range and ambition of these questions of ground explains continued interest in them. But only recently have some philosophers viewed these questions as concerning ground as such. This growing self-consciousness is moving more philosophers to view ground as a topic worthy of study. Much of the recent literature on ground has focused on exploring its structure (Structure) and its connections to other notions (Connections). These explorations spring from the hope that clarifying ground will help clarify the big questions it helps express. Some of the literature on ground explores these applications to the big questions (Applications). But there are also skeptics who challenge ground’s grand pretensions. Some of these skeptics doubt ground’s usefulness for clarifying the big questions. Other skeptics doubt that ground is even intelligible. This has led to a vigorous debate over whether ground deserves the attention it receives (Skepticism and Anti-Skepticism).

Psychoanalytic Facts as Unintended Institutional Facts

2011 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Filip Buekens ◽  
Maarten Boudry
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Facts
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