John R.

Searle lecturing at Exeter

Moot Room, December 15, 2010

PHL3022 PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIETY

Course Guide
Department of Sociology and Philosophy
University of Exeter
Spring 2011

Teacher Responsible:

Dr Mattia Gallotti

Time and Venue:

Tuesday 4-6pm, Amory 105

Lecturer:

Dr Mattia Gallotti
M.Gallotti@ex.ac.uk
Personal website: http://eprofile.exeter.ac.uk/mattiagallotti
Office hours: on appointment

Core Syllabus:

Ontological and epistemological issues concerning human society and the

naturalization of the social sciences

Philosophy of Society: Background and Outline

This module aims to introduce students to some central issues arising from reflection on the foundations
of human sociality. We shall examine questions of ontology pertaining to the nature of the social world
(What is society made of? Are social facts more than the sum of the individuals that constitute them?), as
well as questions of epistemology concerning different styles of research in the social sciences (How do
we acquire knowledge about the social world?). In addressing both sets of questions, we will set out an
understanding of the naturalization of social science as one fundamental concern of current philosophical
approaches to sociality (What is the place of society in the natural realm? What does constitute a naturalscientific explanation in the social sciences?).

Teaching
The course will consist of 11 two-hour seminars, divided roughly in two parts: the first part will be
devoted to short presentations by students followed by discussion, whereas the second part will be
devoted to lecture by teacher.

Assignments

Attendance and active participation in class is compulsory for everybody. In particular, it is crucial that all
students do the required readings before each seminar, in order to bring in their own perspectives and
discuss ideas and work in progress.
Assignments are constituted by: (1) weekly compulsory readings and attendance; (2) tutorial presentations
(15 minutes) on a suggested reading/chapter assigned by the teacher; (3) one 1,000-word formative essay.
The 1,000-word essay must be submitted for consideration through BART before February 17th, 4pm.
Notice that the formative essay is intended as a test-run for the summative, i.e. assessed, work; students
are therefore encouraged to submit their formative essay in order to receive feedbacks and comments that
can later be used to improve the final essay.

Assessment
Assessment will be a 3,000-word essay (100% of final mark), to be submitted through BART before
March 29th, 4pm.

Penalties
Students will receive a penalty for failing to deliver a presentation at the agreed seminar consisting of 5
points off the final module mark. If the presentation is missed due to illness or other circumstances
beyond the students control the penalty can only be avoided by handing in an equivalent piece of work.

Course Readings
In this syllabus you will find a list of readings grouped by topic. For each topic to be discussed, readings
will be classed as COMPULSORY, SUGGESTED and BACKGROUND. The following reading suggestions
also provide points of entry into the topics for assigned essays. Needless to say, a compulsory text is just
that - compulsory and essay questions will presuppose that it has been read. Presentations will be based
on compulsory readings. Everyone should read some of the suggested readings and all of them for topics
on which you are writing an essay. Background readings are there to help you if you are finding the
material covered at lecture difficult.
Students are expected to read carefully and analyze the following two books both in preparation of
seminar presentations and to deepen their understanding of social ontology:
-

Searle, J. (1995), The Construction of Social Reality. London: Penguin.

3

Bicchieri, C. (2006), The Grammar of Society. Cambridge: CUP.

There are no formal prerequisites for taking this course, but knowledge of least some social science and of
some basic philosophy of mind and science will be helpful. There are various textbooks on the philosophy
of social science which will be used as background readings, such as:

Hollis, M. (1994), The Philosophy of Social Science. Cambridge: CUP.

Kincaid, H. (1996), Philosophical Foundations of the Social Sciences, Cambridge: CUP.

Rosenberg, A. (2008), The Philosophy of Social Science (third ed.), Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Some of the readings for this course are reprinted in the following anthologies:

Martin, M. and McIntyre, L. (eds.) (1994), Readings in the Philosophy of Social Science. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.

Steel, D. and Guala, F. (eds.) (2011), The Philosophy of Social Science Reader, London: Routledge.
In addition, various encyclopedia of philosophy can be very useful as well. In particular The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which is available online, contains a number of in-depth articles on a variety
of topics.

Syllabus
WEEK 1 (JANUARY 18, 2011)
INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE: WHAT IS THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIETY?
BACKGROUND
Rosenberg, A. (2008), The Philosophy of Social Science; chapter 1.
Ruben, D.H. (1998), Social Science, Philosophy of. In E. Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, London: Routledge [online], available from http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/R047
(retrieved on January 13, 2011).
Turner, S. & Roth, P.A. (2002), Introduction. Ghosts and the Machine: Issues of Agency, Rationality,
and Scientific Methodology in Contemporary Philosophy of Social Science. In S. Turner & P.A. Roth
(eds.), The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 1-17.

WEEK 2 (JANUARY 25, 2011)

THE IRREDUCIBILITY OF THE SOCIAL I: INDIVIDUALISM VERSUS HOLISM

COMPULSORY
Searle, J. (1995), The Construction of Social Reality; chapters 2&3.
SUGGESTED
Durkheim, E. (1968), What is a Social Fact?. In M., Martin & L. McIntyre, L. (eds.) (1994), Readings in
the Philosophy of Social Science, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 433-440.
Kincaid, L. (1986), Reduction, Explanation and Individualism, Philosophy of Science, 53, pp. 492-513.
Lukes, S. (1968), Methodological Individualism Reconsidered, British Journal of Sociology, 19, pp.
119-129.
Lukes, S. (2007), Searle versus Durkheim. In S.L. Tsohatzidis (ed.), Intentional Acts and Institutional
Facts: Essays on John Searles Social Ontology, Dorderecht, Springer, pp. 191-202.
Mellor, H. (1982), The Reduction of Society, Philosophy, 57, pp. 51-74.
Watkins, J. (1957), Historical Explanations in the Social Sciences, British Journal for the Philosophy of
Science, 8, pp. 104-117.
BACKGROUND
Kincaid, H. (1996), Philosophical Foundations of the Social Sciences; chapter 5.
Rosenberg, A. (2008), The Philosophy of Social Science; chapters 2&5.
Searle, J. (1995), The Construction of Social Reality; chapter 1.

WEEK 3 (FEBRUARY 1, 2011)

THE IRREDUCIBILITY OF THE SOCIAL II: NATURALISM VERSUS INTERPRETATION
COMPULSORY
Searle, J. (1995), The Construction of Social Reality; chapters 4&5.
SUGGESTED
Guala, F. (2007), The Philosophy of Social Science: Metaphysical and Empirical, Philosophy Compass,
2, pp. 954-980.
Mill, J.S. (1866), A System of Logic, London: Macmillan; especially Book 6, On the Logic of the Moral
Sciences.
Papineau, D. (1978), For Science in the Social Sciences, New York: St Martins.
Taylor, C. (1971), Interpretation and the Sciences of Man, Review of Metaphysics, 25, pp. 3-51.
Winch, P. (1958), The Idea of a Social Science and its Relations to Philosophy, London: Routledge.
BACKGROUND
Hollis, M. (1994), The Philosophy of Social Science; chapter 1.
Rosenberg, A. (2008), The Philosophy of Social Science; chapters 1&4.

Steel, D. and Guala, F. (eds.) (2011), The Philosophy of Social Science Reader; Introduction.

WEEK 4 (FEBRUARY 8, 2011)

CASE STUDY I: COLLECTIVE INTENTIONALITY THEORY
COMPULSORY
Searle, J. (1995), The Construction of Social Reality; chapters 6&7.
SUGGESTED
Bratman, M. (1993), Shared Intention, Ethics, 104, pp. 97-113.
Gallotti, M. (2010), Naturally We. A Philosophical Study of Collective Intentionality, unpublished Ph.D.
Thesis, University of Exeter.
Gilbert, M. (1990), Walking Together. A Paradigmatic Social Phenomenon, Midwest Studies in
Philosophy, 15, pp. 1-14.
Levinson, S. (2006), Cognition at the Heart of Human Interaction, Discourse Studies, 8, pp. 85-93.
Pettit, P. and Schweikard, D. (2006), Joint Actions and Group Agents, Philosophy of the Social
Sciences, 36, 18-39.
Searle, J.R. (1990/2002), Collective Intentions and Actions, in J.R. Searle, Consciousness and
Language, Cambridge: CUP.
Tomasello, M. (2008), Origins of Human Communication, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Tuomela, R. (2005), We-Intentions Revisited, Philosophical Studies, 125, pp. 327-369.
BACKGROUND
Steel, D. and Guala, F. (eds.) (2011), The Philosophy of Social Science Reader; part VI.
Searle, J.R. (2005), What Is An Institution?, Journal of Institutional Economics, 1, pp. 1-22.
Tollefsen, D. (2004), Collective Intentionality, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy [online], available
from http://www.iep.utm.edu/coll-int/ (retrieved on February 3, 2011).

WEEK 5 (FEBRUARY 15, 2011)

SOCIAL REALITY AND CONSTRUCTION
COMPULSORY
Searle, J. (1995), The Construction of Social Reality; chapters 8&9.
SUGGESTED
Barnes, B. (1983), Social Life as Bootstrapped Induction, Sociology, 17, pp. 524-545.
Boghossian, P.A. (2006), Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Social Construction, Oxford:
Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press.
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Hacking, I. (1999), The Social Construction of What?, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Haslanger, S. (2003), Social Construction: The Debunking Project, in F. Schmitt (ed.), Socializing
Metaphysics,

Lanham,

MD:

Rowman

&

Littlefield

[online],

available

from

http://www.mit.edu/~shaslang/papers/HaslangerSCDP.pdf (retrieved on February 2, 2011).

Kincaid, H. (2000), Global Arguments and Local Realism about the Social Sciences, Philosophy of
Science, 67, pp. 667-678.
Mallon, R. (2006), A Field Guide to Social Construction, Philosophy Compass, 2, pp. 93-108.
Powell, C. (2001), Whats Social about Social Construction?, Social Studies of Science, 31, pp. 299-307.
BACKGROUND
Searle, J. (1983), The Word Turned Upside Down, New York Review of Books [online], available from
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1983/oct/27/the-word-turned-upside-down/ (retrieved on
February 1, 2011).
Searle J. (2009), Why Should You Believe It?, New York Review of Books [online], available from
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/sep/24/why-should-you-believe-it/

(retrieved

on

February 1, 2011).

WEEK 6 (FEBRUARY 22, 2011)

NORMS, CONVENTIONS AND INSTITUTIONS
COMPULSORY
Bicchieri, C. (2006), The Grammar of Society; chapter 1
SUGGESTED
Guala, F. & Mittone, L. (2005), How History and Conventions Create Norms: An Experimental Study,
Journal of Economic Psychology, 31, pp. 749-756.
Gilbert, M. (2006), Social Conventions Revisited, Topoi, 27, pp. 5-16.
Lewis, D. (1969), Convention. A Philosophical Study, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Ross, D. (2010), Game Theory, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [online], available from
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/game-theory/#Games (retrieved on February 21, 2011).
BACKGROUND
Guala, F. (2007), The Grammar of Society by Cristina Bicchieri. British Journal for the Philosophy of
Science, 58, pp. 613-618.

WEEK 7 (MARCH 1, 2011)

LAWS AND CAUSAL MECHANISMS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE

COMPULSORY
Bicchieri, C. (2006), The Grammar of Society; chapter 2.
SUGGESTED
Bechtel, W. (2008), Mental Mechanisms, New York: Routledge.
Hedstrm, P. & Ylikoski, P. (2010) Causal mechanisms in the social sciences, Annual Review of
Sociology, 36, pp. 4967.
Hempel, C. (1942), The Function of General Laws in History, Journal of Philosophy 39, pp. 35-48.
Kincaid, H. (1990), Defending Laws in the Social Sciences, Philosophy of the Social Sciences 20, pp.
56-83.
Steel, D. (2004), Social Mechanisms and Causal Inference, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 34, pp.
55-78.
Woodward, J. (2000), Explanation and Invariance in the Special Sciences, British Journal for the
Philosophy of Science, 51, pp. 197-254.
BACKGROUND
Rosenberg, A. (2008), The Philosophy of Social Science; chapter 2.
Steel, D. and Guala, F. (eds.) (2011), The Philosophy of Social Science Reader; part II.

WEEK 8 (MARCH 8, 2011)

FUNCTIONS, REASONS AND CAUSES
COMPULSORY
Bicchieri, C. (2006), The Grammar of Society; chapter 3.
SUGGESTED
Cohen, G. (1978), Karl Marxs Theory of History. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Collingwood, R.G. (1946), The Idea of History, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Goldman, A. (2009), Mirroring, Simulating and Mindreading, Mind and Language, 24, pp.: 235-252.
Gopnik, A. & Meltzoff, A. (1998), Words, Thoughts and Theories, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge
University Press.
Kincaid, H. (1996), Philosophical Foundations of the Social Sciences; chapter 4.
Kuhn, T.S. (1962), Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Davidson, D. (1974), Psychology as Philosophy, in S.C. Brown (ed.), Philosophy of Psychology,
London: Macmillan Press.
BACKGROUND
Rosenberg, A. (2008), The Philosophy of Social Science; chapters 1, 4&5.

Steel, D. and Guala, F. (eds.) (2011), The Philosophy of Social Science Reader; part III.

WEEK 9 (MARCH 15, 2011)

CASE STUDY 2: RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY
COMPULSORY
Bicchieri, C. (2006), The Grammar of Society; chapter 4.
SUGGESTED
Cudd, A.E. (1993), Game Theory and the History of Ideas about Rationality, Economics and
Philosophy, 9, pp. 101-133.
Elster, J. (1986), The Nature and Scope of Rational-Choice Explanation, in E., LePore and B.P.,
McLaughin (eds.), Actions and Events. Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson, Oxford:
Blackwell, pp. 60-72.
Guala, F. (2006), Has Game Theory Been Refuted?, Journal of Philosophy, 103, pp 239-263.
Hardin, R. (1998), Rational Choice Theory, in E. Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
London: Routledge, pp. 64-75.
Harsanyi, J. (1977/2011), Advances in the Foundations of Rational Behaviour, in D., Steel and F.,
Guala, (eds.), The Philosophy of Social Science Reader, London: Routledge, pp. 217-230.
Sen, A. (1976), Rational Fools: A Critique of the Behavioral Foundations of Economic Theory,
Philosophy & Public Affairs, 6, pp. 317-344.
BACKGROUND
Rosenberg, A. (2008), The Philosophy of Social Science; chapter 3.
Steel, D. and Guala, F. (eds.) (2011), The Philosophy of Social Science Reader; part IV.

WEEK 10 (MARCH 22, 2011)

EVOLUTIONARY AND EXPERIMENTAL APPROACHES IN SOCIAL SCIENCE
COMPULSORY
Bicchieri, C. (2006), The Grammar of Society; chapter 5
SUGGESTED
Alexander, J.
Dupre, J. (2001), Human Nature and the Limits of Science.Oxford: OUP.
Skirms, B. (2006), Stag Hunt and the Evolution of Social Structure.
Tooby, J. and Cosmides, L. (2005), The Conceptual Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology. In D. M.
Buss (ed.) The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, pp. 5-67.
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BACKGROUND
Rosenberg, A. (2008), The Philosophy of Social Science; chapters 6.

WEEK 11 (MARCH 29, 2011)

SUMMARY
COMPULSORY
Bicchieri, C. (2006), The Grammar of Society; chapter 6

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