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I found little to disagree with in Steven Lukes’ judicious and perceptive commentary on
this issue. In this reply I will not repeat all of the points I agree with but will concen-
trate on some possible points of misunderstanding and disagreement.
I. INTENTIONALITY DEPENDENCE
He is right to say that it can be misleading to use the word ‘observer’ in ‘observer depen-
dence’ because it might imply a contrast between observer and participant. I did not
intend any such contrast. As I wrote in my response to Friedman, ‘For me, the notion
of “observer” is short for all of the forms of intentionality that human beings have in
dealing with their environment. So, when I say that the existence of money is observer
relative, by “observer” I mean observer, user, possessor, buyer, seller, borrower and so on’
(p. 82). A more accurate term would have been ‘intentionality dependence’, but that can
also lead to confusion, because original, intrinsic intentionality itself is not intentional-
ity dependent. ‘Participant’ can also be misleading because one can be part of the collec-
tive acceptance without any active participation. The point is that we need a contrast
between those features of the world whose existence does not depend on our intention-
ality – hydrogen atoms and techtonic plates, for example – and those which do – money,
governments and esthetic excellence, for example. I think once the point is understood
that observer dependence includes participant dependence and so on, any confusion
should evaporate.
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SEARLE Reply to Lukes
IV. DURKHEIM
I am reluctant to enter into any debate about the interpretation of Durkheim because I
do not have a deep enough acquaintance with his work, and frankly I did not find it
very clearly written. The only book of his I know well is The Rules of Sociological Method
and I think that the criticisms I make apply to that text and to the others that I quote.
Lukes points out that Durkheim’s practice is better than his theory, but I am interested
in getting an adequate theory. Lukes also points out that some of the apparent in-
consistencies in Durkheim that I cite might be reconciled. ‘The point is that Durkheim
was, in making these apparently contradictory statements, expressing the very paradox
noted by D’Andrade’ (p. 9), that is to say that institutional facts are real but they only
exist because people think they exist. Perhaps that is the best interpretation of the texts,
but I do not see that Durkheim resolved the paradox or even showed an awareness that
it was a paradox that he had made apparently inconsistent remarks. Overall, I do not
doubt that Lukes may be right in thinking that Durkheim can be given a more favor-
able reading than I gave him, and Lukes is the ideal person to do it. All the same, my
main worry remains: even with the most sympathetic interpretation that you could
possibly give, one that removes some, or perhaps even all, of the obvious glaring
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ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEORY 6(1)
falsehoods and inconsistencies, one that gets rid of the waves of thought, and the sui
generis ontology, and the failed analogies with chemical compounds, the resulting theory
is still inadequate for reasons that I try to spell out in detail in my response to Gross:
the conceptual apparatus that Durkheim employs is inadequate to make the distinctions
and characterizations that are essential to understanding social ontology. Worse yet, I
believe the whole approach is misguided. He wants to make sociology seem like a natural
science. I want to insist on how different it is from the natural sciences. Sociology and
other social sciences are largely concerned with human behavior. The behavior in
question consists in large part of actions done for reasons, and often the actions occur
within humanly created institutions. But these facts, that actions are often done for
reasons, and thus subject to constraints of rationality, and that sometimes the actions
are done within human institutions, together imply that the behavior in question is
performed under the presupposition of free will, and empowered by systems of humanly
created deontologies. Durkheim, as far as I can tell, never got anywhere near this concep-
tion, at least not in his theoretical statements. I gather that Lukes agrees with me about
this, but thinks that Durkheim’s social science practice exhibited the traits left out of his
social science theory.
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SEARLE Reply to Lukes
References
Andersson, Åsa (n.d.) ‘Extending the Scope of Searle’s Theory of Social Reality’,
unpublished paper.
Thomasson, Amie L. (2003) ‘Foundations for a Social Ontology’, ProtoSociology
18–19: 269–90.
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