Hansson Wahlberg, Tobias (2019) The Creation of Institutional Reality, Special Theory of Relativity, and Mere Cambridge Change. [Preprint]
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Abstract
Saying so can make it so, J. L. Austin taught us long ago. Famously, John Searle has developed this Austinian insight in an account of the construction of institutional reality. Searle maintains that so-called Status Function Declarations, allegedly having a “double direction of fit” (i.e. a world-to-word and a word-to-world direction of fit), synchronically create worldly institutional facts, corresponding to the propositional content of the declarations. I argue that Searle’s account of the making of institutional reality is in tension with the special theory of relativity – irrespective of whether the account is interpreted as involving causal generation or non-causal grounding of worldly institutional facts – and should be replaced by a more modest theory which interprets the results of Status Function Declarations in terms of mere Cambridge change and institutional truth. I end the paper by indicating the import of this more modest theory for theorizing about the causal potency of institutional phenomena generated by declarations.
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| Item Type: | Preprint | ||||||
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| Keywords: | Cambridge change; causation; declarations; grounding; institutional facts; performatives; Searle; social ontology; speech acts; special theory of relativity; status functions | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics General Issues > Causation Specific Sciences > Sociology |
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| Depositing User: | Dr. Tobias Hansson Wahlberg | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 16 Oct 2019 23:41 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 16 Oct 2019 23:41 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 16517 | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics General Issues > Causation Specific Sciences > Sociology |
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| Date: | October 2019 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/16517 |
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