What this covers
The distinctive features of human civilization, as opposed to animal societies, are such things as money, property, marriage, government, etc. These are created and partly constituted by linguistic representations. For this reason, they all have logical, propositional structures. John Searle explains how they are created and maintained by certain sorts of speech acts and thus explains the nature of human civilization.
This talk was the second of two talks given by John Searle in 2014 at the University of Indiana as part of the Patten lecture series.
#philosophy #searle #ontology #language
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Human civilization is fundamentally created through a specific type of speech act—the declaration—which assigns status functions to objects and people, creating institutional facts and deontic powers that structure all of human society from money to government to marriage.
- Status functions arise when humans collectively assign functions to objects/people based not on physical structure but on accepted social status
- Declarations have a unique double direction of fit: they represent something as existing AND cause it to exist through that representation
- All institutional reality—money, property, government, universities—operates through the repeated application of status function declarations
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Constitutive rules are rules that constitute the very behavior they regulate, unlike regulative rules which regulate previously existing or independently existing forms of behavior
“the key to understanding this was that there are certain kind of rules which i call constitutive rules to distinguish them from regulative rules regulative rules regulate uh previously existing or independently existing forms of behavior drive on the right hand side of the road that's a regulative rule but not all rules are like that some rules constitute the very behavior that they regulate because performing the behavior consists in acting in accordance with the rules”
The central problem in contemporary philosophy is reconciling our self-conception as conscious, rational, free agents with what we know about the physical structure of the universe, which consists of mindless physical particles
“the central fact about knowledge is it grows and we know a lot more than we did 100 or 300 years ago and we have a pretty good idea about the basic structure of the universe roughly speaking it's a matter of physical particles in fields of force”
We must assume our self-conception is more or less accurate AND that what we've learned from natural sciences is accurate, and show how the human reality is a natural consequence of basic physical reality, with the requirement that we demonstrate how once you have protons you get presidents and once you have electrons you get elections
“we should start out assuming that our self-conception is more or less accurate and that we that what we've learned from the natural sciences is accurate how do we reconcile the two and it's not enough that they should be consistent you've got to show how the human reality is a natural outcome of the more basic reality you've got to show how once you got protons you're going to get presidents and once you've got electrons you're going to get elections the one has to be a natural consequence of the other”
Getting a majority of votes in the electoral college counts as being president-elect, and being sworn in by the chief justice of the supreme court counts as becoming president of the united states—these are examples of constitutive rules creating new institutional statuses.
“getting a majority of votes in the electoral college accounts as being president-elect and being sworn in by the chief justice of the supreme court counts as becoming president of the united states”
Humans are suited by Darwinian natural selection for a hunter-gatherer existence and have not had much change in the gene pool in the past 30,000 years, yet there has been an enormous difference in the mode of existence of human life in those 30,000 years
“we are as far as we can tell i darwinian natural selection has suited us just fine for a hunter gatherer existence and we apparently haven't had much change in our gene pool in the past 30 000 years but we've had an enormous difference in the mode of existence of human life in those 30 000 years”
Money, represented as 'legal tender for all debts public and private,' is a declaration, not a discovered fact—the government doesn't discover that a bill is legal tender through survey or study; they make it legal tender by declaring it to be so, and this is a remarkable capacity of humans to create reality simply by declaring it exists.
“there are stunning philosophical claims made on this sheet of paper it says this note is legal tender for all debts public and private now we're all epistemologists and our natural inclination is to say how the hell do they know has there been a study has there been a survey they say arrogantly it's legal tender for all debts public and private what's the evidence that it's legal tender and the answer of course is they don't discover that it's legal tender they make it legal tender by declaring it to be legal tender that's a declaration so the declaration there this nodal legal tender looks like an ordinary statement of fact but it's not it isn't that they did a serious survey and discovered yep really is legal tender no they made it legal tender by declaration”
Status functions are created for the purpose of creating power structures—all institutional reality is a matter of creating power structures through which humans can accomplish more than they could without institutions
“what's the point why do we create all these status functions why do we make somebody chairman of the department pronounce somebody husband and wife make somebody present in the united states create money and private property and government and marriage marriage and the answer is all of those are status functions yes but what's the function what's the point of the function and the answer to that is we do it for power all of those create power structures all institutional reality is a matter of creating power structures”
Language is not just one system of status functions among others but the basic human institution because all other human institutions presuppose language—you can have a language without property or government, but not property or government without language
“another result that comes out of this out of this discussion is that language unlike my earlier view is not just one system of status functions among others it's the basic human institution in this sense all other human institutions that i mentioned like a government and private property and universities all of them presuppose language you can have a society that has a language but doesn't have money or private property or in government but you can't have the converse you could not have if an anthropologist comes back from the amazon basin and says her tribe has language has language but they don't have private property and they don't have a government that makes sense but if she comes back and says they have private property government marriage uh and money but they do not have a language we know that couldn't be right because language is the fundamental human institution in that all others presuppose language”
Performatives are Austin's original examples of declarations where a special verb is used such as 'promise,' 'order,' or 'adjourn,' but declarations need not use a special performative verb—any sentence can be a declaration if understood in the right way
“now how do those work well the favorite examples are austin's examples of performatives uh where you make an order by saying i order you to leave the room you make a promise by saying i promise to come and see you you adjourn the meeting by saying the meeting is adjourned you've given bequeath your watch to your nephew by saying i give and bequeath my watch to my nephew all of those cases you have a verb or verb phrase such as promise or order or adjourn but you don't always need a special sentence to do that you can do it a special kind of sentence you can do it with any sentence provided it's understood in the right way”
Sometimes you can create an institutional fact out of thin air without any physical X term—most money has no physical existence; money in a bank account is purely representational, existing only as magnetic traces on computer disks in the bank's systems
“sometimes you don't even need an x term you can create an institutional effect out of thin air and my favorite example was always money and i like to haul out a twenty dollar bill and show it off but the fact is most money has no physical existence at all there is no x that counts as a twenty dollar uh bill in my bank account you see i'm very naive and i think if i give these guys the money and it's my bank account there ought to be a drawer with my name on it where they keep my money and i want to go and see my money in the bank well that's not how it works it's very disconcerting your money has no physical existence at all there are magnetic traces on computer disks in the bowels of the bank but those magnetic traces haven't got any money glued to them they are representations of money”
Speech acts typically have a structure consisting of illocutionary force and propositional content—you can make a prediction, give an order, or ask a question with the same propositional content, but each has a different illocutionary force
“human speech acts typically have this kind of structure you have a certain force what austin called illocusionary force and a propositional content so i can predict that you will leave the room i can order that you will leave the room i can ask whether you will leave the room in each case the same proposition as a different kind of speech act a different kind of what often called illocusionary acts”
Commissives commit the speaker to doing something and include promises, vows, threats, and pledges; they create reasons for the speaker to act
“you have the commissive class and that includes orders and commands these at these have this direction of fit the directives have this direction of fit directives are orders and commands as well as well as suggestions and requirements okay but now there's another class where you commit yourself to doing something and those i call commissives the commissive class and the philosopher's favorite is the promise where you promise vow threat pledge and thus create reasons for doing something”
Money is institutionally beneficial on balance despite being called 'the root of all evil'; attempting to organize a decent life without the possibility of buying, selling, and being paid for work is very difficult to imagine, showing money's essential function.
“money is an institution is it beneficial i think on balance it is it's famously the root of all evil but it's the root of an awful lot of good too i i try to imagine what your life would be like if you had no possibility of buying and selling or being paid or being paid for your work or anything like that it's very hard to imagine how you would organize a decent life”
Statements and assertions have word-to-world direction of fit: they are supposed to be true or false, and they succeed when the words match the reality. Statements are true when the words correctly describe how the world is.
“the statement is supposed to be true or false and it's true whether or not if the if the uh statement up here matches the reality down here and i think in simple metaphors think of that as having a fit where the word is supposed to fit the world that's the word to world direction of fit and the simplest mark for whether a speech act has that direction of fit is can you literally say that it's true or false”
The deep mistake in our history has been the effort to deny that we live in one world by claiming there are two worlds—a physical world described by science and a spiritual world—rather than recognizing we live in one world and showing how distinctive human features are part of that one world
“the big mistake in our history is one i pointed out last time and that is the effort to deny that we live in one world the effort to say well really there are two worlds that we live in a physical world as described by science and a spiritual world and i think that is a deep mistake i'm going to resist that that i'm going to say we live in one world”
In California, when you get married the institutional status creates numerous status functions and rights including spousal benefits and pregnancy leaves even for male spouses, demonstrating how a single institutional status interlocks with many other institutional structures
“in the case of a marriage in the case of the contract making the noise counts as making a promise making that promise makes as counts as performing creating a certain kind of contract and certain kinds of contract count as getting married now in the state of california when you get married all hell breaks loose from an institutional point of view you're entitled to spousal benefits and pregnancy leaves even if you're a male you can get a pregnancy leave”
Private property benefits most people but has in modern times created such a disproportionate concentration of wealth (in 'the famous one percent') that the distribution is unhealthy and grants excessive political power to a small elite, creating a real social problem.
“i think private property again benefits just about everybody but we now have in the united states such a disproportionate concentration of private property and the famous one percent the wealth is so disproportionately concentrated that it seems to me very unhealthy it's just not a healthy way to run a society to have so much power so much deonic power in the hands of so few people for one thing it gives them a disproportionate amount of political power and these are real problems that we're going to have to face”
Rhetorical questions are interesting because they make a statement by assuming that the answer to the question is known, and thus use the form of a question to perform the function of an assertion
“when the guy in the republican national convention says do we want four more years of incompetent government he doesn't want people to think about it oh i don't know do we or don't we i guess we do uh no it's not the form of the question so rhetorical questions are interesting in that the rhetorical question makes a statement by assuming that the answer the question is known it's as soon as the answer is known uh consequently you use the rhetorical question to make a statement”
Humans should not be arrogant about their special position in the universe—given that there are a hundred billion stars in our galaxy and a hundred billion galaxies, it is unlikely that humans are the only conscious beings in the universe
“now we ought not to be arrogant about our special situation as i mentioned before we are a very small solar system in a big galaxy and there are a hundred billion stars in our galaxy i don't know how many of them can support life or or planets like as ours do but uh our galaxy with its 100 billion stars it's one of a hundred billion galaxies so it seems to me unlikely that we're the only uh conscious beasts in the universe”
Questions are species of directives—every question is a request for an answer, and the form of the question determines the form of the answer
“questions are species of directive every question is a request it's a request for an answer i and indeed there's a remarkable thing about questions in english that the form of the question determines the form of the answer so if if i answer do you have any bananas and you say yes that doesn't mean yes it's going to rain tomorrow it means yes we have bananas”
Human civilization is created by a specific type of speech act called a declaration—a speech act with a double direction of fit that makes something the case by representing it as being the case
“i want to start the second part of the lecture where i'm going to try to show how to assimilate this account that i gave you into a much more general account and to do that i need to tell you a little bit about how language works because my essential message is going to be that human civilization is created by a certain very specific type of speech act by a very specific type of language act”
The actual corporation is not the building that is its office but is purely abstract, existing only in the legal and institutional system
“that corporation may have a building which is its office but that's not the corporation that's just the building the actual corporation is purely abstract”
Money is a striking example of a status function: a five dollar bill performs its function not in virtue of its physical structure but in virtue of the collective acceptance and agreement that it has the status of being money
“here is another object that performs a function it's a five dollar bill but unlike that other stuff i showed you it doesn't perform the function in virtue of its physical structure it performs the function and virtual effect that we accept or recognize or agree it's in virtue of our attitudes that it performs the function of the five dollar bill not in virtue of its physical structure”
The process by which the universe of basic physical particles gives rise to human beings and civilization involves life emerging from organized carbon-based molecules, continuing to evolve through evolutionary mechanisms to develop animals with consciousness, then language, and then human society
“those are organized in the systems now on our little earth some of those particles are organized into large molecules containing lots of carbon with hydrogen nitrogen and oxygen and some of those systems of carbon-based molecules became alive now to this day we don't know when and how and where that happened but it did happen it's an amazing fact and some of those living organic systems some of those living organic systems continue to evolve and they were now talking about millions of years continue to evolve until they became animals and some animals evolved consciousness and now that's what i talked about last time is how the brain creates consciousness”
Examples of declarations include: the chairman adjourning a meeting by saying 'the meeting is adjourned', firing an employee by saying 'you're fired', hiring someone by saying 'you're hired', and pronouncing a couple married by saying 'I pronounce you husband and wife'.
“the chairman can adjourn the meeting by saying the meeting is adjourned i and you can fire an employee just by saying you're fired you can hire somebody just by saying you're hired or you can pronounce a couple husband and wife if you're duly authorized by saying i pronounce you husband and wife”
Vocabulary is crucial because it is the articulation of the assignment of status functions—the vocabulary you use encodes the institutional structure you are creating and maintaining
“the vocabulary is crucial because the vocabulary is the articulation of the assignment of a status function”
An institutional fact presupposes human institutions and is distinct from brute facts—facts like hydrogen atoms having one electron or the earth being 93 million miles from the sun that don't presuppose any institutions
“we have the capacity to create institutional facts facts that presuppose human institutions facts like the fact that you are students and faculty members of the university of indiana or that your citizens of the united states and we need to contrast institutional facts with brute facts and the question is how do you get from a world of brute facts facts that don't presuppose any institutions facts like the fact that hydrogen atoms have one electron and the earth is 93 million miles from the sun”
Civilization is built through repeated application of constitutive rules in a system where they iterate upward indefinitely—X counts as Y, and Y counts as Z, and so on—creating increasingly complex institutional structures
“it seemed to me that's how we do it we build civilization by repeated application of constitutive rules now you might think well that's too pathetic an apparatus you can't build civilization with that it looks too fragile but it has two formal properties that are remarkable one formal property is it iterates upward indefinitely so watch i make noises through my mouth they count as sentences of english some of those utterances of sentences count as the making of promises some promises count as undertaking a legal contract now watch what's happening in this case we have x1 counts as y1 but y1 equals x2 and that counts as y2 and we keep going up”
Deontic powers lock into human rationality in such a way that they give reasons for acting independent of inclinations—recognizing an obligation as binding creates a desire-independent reason for acting
“deontic powers are remarkable in this respect they lock into human rationality they lock in the human rationality in such a way that they give you reasons for acting that are independent of your inclinations so if you recognize an obligation as a binding obligation you recognize that you have a desire independent reason for acting on that obligation”
There is an interesting asymmetry between how constitutive rules operate in language versus non-linguistic institutional facts: when you make a statement in language, no powers arise beyond the semantic powers of the language itself, but when you create non-linguistic institutional facts, the powers go beyond language
“in the case of the status functions and the deonic powers that are non-linguistic for example when we make somebody president of the united states we use language to create power that goes beyond the power of language so we use language to say uh by the authority vested in my i hereby pronounce you president of the united states the guy then has powers that go beyond the powers of language but when we just use a sentence to make a statement there are no powers that go beyond the powers of language”
Many traditional issues in philosophy and social science are clarified by recognizing that institutional facts are created and maintained through status function declarations, including debates about human rights, which are not properties humans have intrinsically but status functions created by declaration.
“i think as i said a lot of traditional issues are clarified if you adopt the approach that's implicit in what i've been saying let me conclude with one thought there are a huge debates that go on in this country and internationally about human rights about universal human rights uh and uh the question is what is the ontology of the human rights and there are a class of philosophers who are very skeptical like jeremy bentham and aleister mcintyre they think talk of human rights is nonsense what are you talking about but i think in fact the talk can be made legitimate once you recognize what's actually going on”
Traditional social and political theory has an endemic flaw going back to the Greeks—they took language for granted and had an impoverished theory of language, particularly social contract theorists who assume people were already speaking when they decided to create a society
“if you look at our tradition in political and social theory there is a an endemic flaw that goes back to the greeks and that is roughly speaking they had an impoverished theory of language they took language for granted the social contract theorists are the worst because they assume that we're running around the woods speaking a language and then some genius says let's make a social contract and then you get together and have a society but what the implication what i'm saying is if you've got a language you've already got an implicit social contract because you have the possibility of creating a status functions”
Social ontology concerns the mode of existence of social phenomena such as money, property, government, marriage, universities, and income tax deductions—institutions that are created by human consciousness yet constitute objective facts
“i'm going to be talking about uh what uh you could call to use a fancy jargon social ontology the mode of existence of such social phenomena as money and property and government and marriage and universities and universities and income tax deductions and so on there's a huge range of the social ontology”
We still don't understand how the brain creates consciousness, and we may never fully understand how human language took off because there is no fossil evidence that would show whether ancient humans had verb-subject-object language versus other linguistic structures
“we know that it functions in the brain but we know that it does now this lecture was the next step where once you've got length once you've got consciousness then you can get language and i didn't discuss the structures of language i just talked about some of the uses and now once you have language you have the possibility of creating society human society and human civilization so the pattern goes from the basic physical reality of physical particles to the beginnings of life in carbon-based molecules and then the developmental of life through evolution and then the development of evolutionary mechanisms through the development of animals and conscious animals and then the development of language and then us and then all the stuff we got that's the picture i should spell that out but that's how you get from protons to presidents you get from having the basic system of the physical particles some of those become alive a stunning fact i and some of those living systems evolve over long periods of evolutionary time and then over that long period of evolutionary time you eventually reach folks like us now we ought not to be arrogant about our special situation as i mentioned before we are a very small solar system in a big galaxy”
While most of the observable universe is composed of ordinary matter (stars, planets, etc.), that matter represents only about 4% of the universe—the other 96% is dark matter and dark energy that physicists haven't figured out
“the other 96 percent is dark matter and dark energy and what's dark about it is epistemic darkness that damn physicists haven't figured it out they they have pretty good reasons for believing in it i mean here's the thing they say that always drives me crazy the universe is expanding what's it expanding in you know if i say we've decided to expand the kitchen okay well then it's got to expand into the backyard but if we say oh and by the way we're going to expand the kitchen and expand the universe what do i expand the universe in well there is an answer to that but it they've been misleading us and the answer is to say the universe is expanding is to say the galaxies are getting farther apart”
Human life is entirely structured within a complex family of status functions created by repeated application of the same simple linguistic operation: the status function declaration, because humans are not smart enough to create something new and original every time.
“the remarkable thing is uh that your life is entirely structured within a series of complex families of status functions they're all created by the same simple logical linguistic operation applied over and over the status function declaration see we're not smart enough to do something new and original every time we we have this device for creating status functions it's the status function declaration and we apply it over and over”
Status functions often need status function indicators to mark that one has the status—uniforms indicate police status, driver's licenses indicate authorized driving, wedding rings indicate married status—and these indicators are primarily epistemic devices
“that's that's absolutely right and i'm grateful for the contribution i want to say a little bit more about it many status function attached to specific individuals named individuals so you're named in the driver's license or on the marriage license you can't prove you're married by borrowing my marriage license okay i mean uh it is specific the beauty of money is it's fungible anybody with the money can use it to buy something with but all sorts of other things are not in that way exchangeable now there's another topic i didn't have a chance to go into but i want to use this occasion to mention it and that is that often we need indicators you need status function indicators so the policeman wears a uniform and the actual license that i have is not the status function it's an indicator that i'm able to drive it's a state what i call a status function indicator and these wedding rings uniforms driver's licenses all of these are status function indicators and their primary function is epistemic they prove that i have the status that i claim to have”
Unlike other rights that arise within pre-existing institutions (citizen rights, marriage rights, professional rights), human rights are unique because being human itself is recognized as a status function
“what's different about human rights and other rights is that other rights typically arise within a pre-existing institution as a citizen i have certain rights as a husband i have certain rights as a professor i have certain rights but somebody in the 18th century i don't know who it was or maybe it was 17th century but it's in the enlightenment somebody or some group of people got an idea of genius just being a human being is a why status function”
No general theory of social collapse or institutional failure is available; the question of what makes institutions good or bad requires examination of what constitutes human flourishing and what institutions facilitate it, which is a complex evaluative question beyond purely ontological analysis.
“i don't have a general theory of society or social uh collapse uh so i really i'm the wrong guy to ask this question of i've if if i got a a good characterization of social ontology the mode of existence uh then i i you i can go on from there but i haven't gone on from there the question would be well what makes a good institution is a bad institution and there it seems to me you have to ask questions about well what constitutes human flourishing and what sorts of healthy societies will facilitate human flourishing”
Christmas Day is an institutional fact because being on Christmas Day carries deontic powers—obligations to give children presents and rights to time off—whereas the Christian calendar itself is not an institutional fact because merely being such-and-such a date does not carry deontic powers.
“the christian calendar is not an institution because uh being such and such a date doesn't carry a deontology the test is does it carry a deontology christmas day is an institutional fact because it care i have obligations and rights on christmas day uh i have i am obligated to give my children presents and i have a right to a day off that marks it as an institutional fact that's a status function”
Some status functions would suffer if they were codified—cocktail parties, love affairs, and friendship are status functions with deontic powers, but codifying them would make them rigid and less flexible
“there are some status functions that are not codified and would suffer if they were codified i think of cocktail parties love affairs and friendship now all of those are status functions the test is is there a set of obligations and other deontic powers that go with inviting people to a cocktail party or having a friend are there obligations of friendship or obligation of a love affair and the answer seems to me in every case yes but you don't want to try to codify it because the partly you're inventing it as you go along you're inventing the structure of the institutional fact if it's a friendship or a love affair and if it gets codified you get serious then it then it becomes much more flexible”
Terms like 'spinster' mark status functions that are becoming obsolete as the vocabulary fades from use, and 'bachelor' may be becoming obsolete as well due to changes in marital practices and relationships
“if you look at older american laws the word spinster occurs commonly now i once asked my class how many of you are spinsters please raise your hand one middle-aged woman had a courage to raise her hand i wanted to give her an a on the spot because this is a a term that is becoming obsolete it did mark a status function and i think bachelor may be coming obsolete what with a change in in what with hesitation i call marital practices uh but with a relation of the sexes we may be going for all sorts of new vocabularies”
Some institutions are so obviously useful that they cannot be meaningfully challenged (like language itself—you'd need language to argue against language), while others like slavery are inherently evil and properly subject to challenge and elimination.
“there are lots of institutions that are so obviously uh useful to all of us that they really are not subject to challenge as institutions the most obvious is language if you think that private property is a bad idea okay you can argue against private property but how would you argue against language you'd have to use language to argue against language and i don't i mean it's just pretty hard to see language being challenged as an institution now some institutions are inherently evil slavery seems to me a slavery of human being seems to me inherently evil but then that's something you can argue for that's something you can within institutional structures you can make that out”
A key difference between humans and other animals like dogs is that humans have the capacity to create institutional facts—facts that presuppose human institutions—whereas other animals do not worry about such matters
“my dog my favorite example here is very intelligent but he's not worried about what he's gonna do for christmas vacation or how how he's going to handle the income tax this year he just does not have that kind of worry now what's the matter with him is he uh is he being irresponsible uh well no i think we have an apparatus that gives us a kind of power that he doesn't have and the first notion i want to introduce is the notion of an institutional fact”
The second capacity needed to create institutional facts is the human ability to impose functions on objects—to take an object and give it a function through intentional assignment that is observer-relative
“well humans have a remarkable capacity that some animals have but not all animals and that is they can impose functions on objects they can take an object and give it a function so i'm sorry to give these sorted examples but my pockets are full of objects that will perform various sorted functions like combing my hair or writing on paper”
Status functions interlock with other status functions so that individual institutions function only by locking into many other institutions—money in a bank account interlocks with employers, universities, income tax systems, and credit card companies
“another remarkable feature of this apparatus this x counts as y and c is it interlocks with other status functions so i don't just have money but i have money in my bank account at the bank of america on telegraph avenue in berkeley california it's put there by my employers the regions of the university and i use it to pay my state and federal income tax my credit card debts and a whole lot of other things now notice just about every noun i use there with a possible exception of telegraph avenue named a status function it named some institutional thing the bank of america my employers the university of california so one institution functions only by locking into a whole lot of other institutions”
Sometimes you don't need a rule to create an institutional fact—a bunch of kids can just decide that somebody is going to be captain of the softball team without needing a constitution to appeal to
“often you don't need a rule to create an institutional fact a bunch of kids can uh just decide that somebody's gonna be the captain of the softball team they don't have to have a constitution uh to appeal to that they just do it they just haul off and and uh count this guy as the captain of the softball team”
Humans live in a sea of status functions that are almost totally invisible because we take them for granted—the clothes on our backs, our citizenship, driver's licenses, credit cards are all status functions that structure our existence
“here is the uh the thesis that i am advancing we live in a sea of status functions yeah they the marvelous thing is they're almost totally invisible because you take them for granted uh the clothes on my back are my private property i am a citizen of the united states a possessor of a valid california driver's license uh the uh hour of money on my uh various credit cards and so on the list is huge”
Status functions that are codified into law naturally tend to proliferate because the status function only exists if it is represented as existing, and once you have the representation it is relatively easy to codify it
“a lot many status functions of the kind that i described to you are codified it's easy to make a law about these and laws naturally tend to proliferate why because the status function only exists if it's represented as existing and if you've got the representation then it's relatively easy to codify the representation”
Status functions are created by declaration only if people accept them; the Declaration of Independence created the institutional status of American independence because enough people accepted it, but this required a war to establish acceptance
“how do we get away with it you see what's amazing uh is we get away with it and the short answer to that is you get away with it if people accept it and the most amazing creation of a status function by declaration were by guys who wrote as if they had read my book they used the very terminology they call it the declaration of independence now now there's nothing you see there's nothing in their status functions prior to that moment that gives them the power to do this these are let us not forget british subjects they're not citizens of anything they're s they're subjects of king george the third where in a british crown colony philadelphia it's a crown colony it's a got a status function it's entirely under the government of the of the uh uh of the royal family in london and they just got together and performed a collective speech act they said we uh declare ourselves to be an independent nation now they got away with it how did they get away with it well the short answer is they got people to accept it and we're here because people accept it and we accept it uh the long answer is they had to fight a war to get the acceptance uh and it wasn't really until cornwallis was defeated at yorktown that they were free and clear”
In primate hierarchies observed in laboratories, alpha males must constantly fight off other males to maintain their status, whereas in human societies like the White House, leaders have an accepted system of status functions that persists through time without constant physical conflict
“i visited mike tomasello at his primate lab in leipzig and he's got all these primates that are busy fighting it out every day who's going to be the alpha male today and the alpha male has to find allies among other males to fight off other alpha males now that's not how it works in the white house barack obama does not get up and think today i gotta beat everybody in arm wrestling or whatever it might be no he's got an accepted system of status functions and that persists through time”
Modern security concerns at Oxford arose because traditional status function indicators (clothing) ceased to distinguish members from non-members when everyone began wearing blue jeans, requiring institutions to adopt door-locking measures they previously didn't need
“this wouldn't qualify but in any case they there was no question about improper people wandering in the university they would be immediately identified by their style of dress now everybody wears blue jeans they imitate the americans so you can't do that anymore and people have now started locking their doors you have to lock your door in auction the way you didn't used to because it was all members of the upper class and they were readily identifiable by their address”
To get from brute facts to institutional facts, humans need three basic things: first, the remarkable capacity for collective intentionality—the ability to cooperate with other people
“it seemed to me it's rather simple you need just three things to get from brute reality to institutional reality first of all you need this remarkable capacity that humans and many other species have to cooperate uh there's a piece of jargon that that we use to describe this you need a capacity for collective intentionality for the ability to cooperate with other people”
The title 'logical structure of human civilization' is somewhat provocative because it emphasizes the propositional structure of institutions (the assignment of status functions according to declarations) rather than implying logical as opposed to illogical.
“when i use this somewhat uh provocative title the logical structure of human civilization unfortunately most people think i i mean logical as opposed to illogical that's not the point the point is that it has a propositional structure the propositional structure is the assignment of a status function according to the the speech act of declaration that makes something the case by representing it as being the case and wherever you have propositional structures you have logical relations that's why i call it the logical structure of human civilization”
A California driver's license is unique to a specific individual and cannot be transferred like a lunch coupon, because the license marks an individual's status function of being a licensed driver
“suppose i were visiting california i didn't bring my driver's license you couldn't say roy that's all right just take mine yeah on the other hand i have also a lunch coupon for lunch tomorrow yeah i could give that coupon to somebody else yeah and that person could eat lunch instead of me so it's important that the driver's license is unique to you yeah and when a policeman stops you he wants to know that it's john and not week whereas on the other hand when it comes to comes to lunch it doesn't matter who is eating the lunch because they want to make sure that the number of coupons equals the number of people who paid yes”
The speaker was invited to lecture in Bloomington months in advance but as the date approached had no desire to travel, stand in line at airport security, or eat airplane food, yet kept the commitment because he had created an institutional fact through promising
“a nice guy invited me to go to bloomington indiana and give some lectures it seemed like a great idea many months away but then a day comes when you've got to get up early in the morning and make your way to san francisco airport and then it's just well you know what it's like you got to stand in line you got to take your shoes off and you got to eat airplane food and you don't even get much of that anymore and then worst of all you gotta try to put your elbow where some other guy's trying to put his elbow and so on so nobody does it for fun on the other hand there was no question i had made a promise i had created an institutional fact and that is my promising that institutional fact had created a reason for acting that was independent of my inclination i had a reason for a a coming and here i am”
All of Barack Obama's powers derive from his creation and recognition as president through language and representation, but the powers he possesses go far beyond semantic powers—commanding American troops in battle goes far beyond the semantics of language
“all of barack obama's powers derive from semantics he has to be created as president and and treated as president represented as president but the powers go beyond semantics the power to command american troops in battle goes far beyond the semantics even though the initial origin of the power is on the basis of the semantics the semantics creates powers that are not semantic”
Revolutionary movements try to change institutional reality by changing the vocabulary—the Russian Revolution insisted people be called 'comrade' instead of traditional forms of address to mark a change in status functions of equality
“one of the ways to see this is to see that way that revolutionary movements want to change the vocabulary at the time of the russian revolution the revolutionaries were very anxious that people not use the traditional forms of address of traditional russia they wanted everybody to be called comrade why because that marked an equality of status function which calling somebody a lord or a duke or whatever would not accept so they were insistent on changing the vocabulary”
Expressives are speech acts where the aim is not to fit reality but to express an attitude, such as apologies, thanks, and congratulations
“there is this weird class the expressives where you apologize thank congratulate and those i i just call expressives where the aim is not to fit reality but to express an attitude”
We don't know precisely when life began, how it began, or where it began, but it is an undeniable fact that it did begin from non-living matter and did evolve over millions of years.
“some of those living organic systems some of those living organic systems continue to evolve and they were now talking about millions of years continue to evolve until they became animals and some animals evolved consciousness... we don't understand that we don't know how exactly the brain creates consciousness or how exactly it functions in the brain but we know that it does”
The American colonists could not have won the Revolutionary War without the help of the French, and France was essential in the creation of the American nation
“and we're here because people accept it and we accept it uh the long answer is they had to fight a war to get the acceptance uh and it wasn't really until cornwallis was defeated at yorktown that they were free and clear and by the way something americans tend to forget we couldn't have won the war without the help of the french the french were essential in the creation of our uh of our country”
At Oxford University when the speaker was a student, you could identify members of the university by their clothing style—they wore worsted flannel slacks and tweed jackets—which served as a status function indicator
“when i first got to berkeley you could tell who the professors were they were the guys with ties on uh ties and jackets then in the 60s you could tell the professors they were the ones with shoes on because dressing habits had changed by then um so you get these and part of the problem in my old university oxford is when i was a student there you could identify who was a member of the university buy their clothing they wore well the kind of stuff i got on roughly speaking they had on worsted flannel slacks and usually tweed jackets”
Philosophy is fun because humans still have a lot of unresolved problems to work on across all domains of inquiry
“well that's what makes philosophy fun is we've got a lot to work on okay who's next”
Consciousness is discussed in a previous lecture that this current lecture builds upon, establishing it as a real phenomenon that emerges from brain activity before language and institutional facts develop.
“last time i talked about one aspect of that problem and that was consciousness... the big mistake in our history is one i pointed out last time”