social/ institutional reality

Cythraul

Active Member
Dec 10, 2003
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What do you guys think is the basic structure of institutional reality? What I mean is, how do we get from brute physical facts (i.e. laws of physics, etc.) to institutional facts (marriage, money, property, etc.). How would a reductionist account for institutional reality if everything is supposedley reducible to the laws of physics? How do we account for intentionality, etc.? It seems to me that there's not much in the way of a substantial argument for the reductionist view. There's an interesting book on this subject called The Construction of Social Reality by John Searle. His account seems pretty obvious on its face (and correct) but I think there's a lot of opposition to the common sense view of institutional facts, especially in the realm of the social sciences. If anyone's familiar with this subject, I'd like to know your views.