Language & Social Ontology (John Searle)

A wonderful talk given by John Searle at the University of Oslo back in 2011 on language and social ontology. He attempts to explain the distinctive features of human civilization. Animals have forms of social organization and communication, but they do not have money, property, government, and marriage. Why not? Human institutional facts are created and maintained by a specific type of linguistic representation that he calls a "status function declaration." This operation can be performed over and over again on a wide range of subjects. It creates and maintains systems of deontic power: rights, duties, obligations and empowerments of various kinds. These provide the glue that hold human society together. They do that by providing humans with desire independent reasons for action, that is, reasons for doing things that are independent of their immediate inclinations.

This talk was given in 2011 by John Searle in Oslo.

#Philosophy #Language #Searle

[YossieVerdieu]

Great analysis, thank you! Just a quick off-topic question: I have a SafePal wallet with USDT, and I have the seed phrase. (behave today finger ski upon boy assault summer exhaust beauty stereo over). What's the best way to send them to Binance?

[Noitisnt-nsmo]

Phones, hormones and abstract thought. Good luck with that.

[michaelaristidou]

All that to basically say that humans use and create tools. Real and abstract. 🤔

[alejandrarodriguezsanchez]

is the distinction between ontological and epistemic subjective or objective? and why?