Reinach and Searle:
Two Approaches to Sociality
Lars Lundsten, PhD
University of Helsinki, Finland
Abstract: Adolf Reinach (1883–1917) was perhaps the most prominent member of the realist movement within phenomenology before the First World War. John R. Searle (b. 1932) belongs to the still flourishing Anglo-Saxon analytical tradition. Nevertheless, there are several remarkable similarities between these two philosophers. Both are committed to a realist ontology, and they approach the phenomenon of sociality in quite similar ways. They are particularly interested in social institutions such as communication and law. However, their approaches also show substantial differences concerning the qualitative distinction between individual and social phenomena. For Searle, sociality is derived from collective intentions. In Reinach's work, sociality is understood as a more specific notion than collectivity in Searle's sense. Hence, my thesis is that Reinach's analysis shows the path towards a more satisfactory account of the significant differences between individual, collective and social phenomena.
1. Introduction: Social Reality
The term 'social' is a dangerously ambiguous one. Sometimes, 'social' or some term derived from it is used in order to underline the distinction between the private and public spheres. One can speak of 'social relationships' meaning that certain individuals are friends, neighbours, or members of the same family. On other occasions, 'social' is used to mark a distinction between so called hard facts and merely conventional practices of beliefs. Furthermore, 'social' can be used as an attribute to mark a certain attitude or moral stance towards fellow human beings. Expressions such as 'social benefits' and 'socially minded' may exemplify this range.
Most commonly, the term 'social' is supposed to make a point concerning some feature in a sociological, epistemological or moral context. Our current concern, however, is with ontological problems. Hence, 'social' will be used to mark certain ontologically significant features distinguishing various categories of objective features of the world.
By the concept social reality, we shall understand a part of objective reality. According to this view, the real world, or 'the objective world', consists primarily of natural objects. In addition to these, we have a category of real phenomena that are not natural but social. This is the nutshell version of an ontology shared by the early realist phenomenologist Adolf Reinach (1883–1917) and the speech act theorist John R. Searle (b. 1932)note 1.
For different reasons, which will only briefly be touched upon below, Reinach and Searle became involved with questions concerning the ontological status of things that seemed not to belong to a merely natural reality. Many real things seemed obviously to be dependent on human consciousness but still appeared to deserve more serious attention than mere phantoms or hallucinations would deserve.
According to the view apparently shared by Reinach and Searle, things such as atoms, radiation, gravitation and electric charge are pats of material reality. Laws, languages, property rights, armies and corporations are parts of social reality.
By large, human beings exist as parts of material reality but not as necessary parts of it. Human beings, however, are indispensable for social reality. In some cases, people are individually involved in social reality, like in court cases. Other parts of social reality do not need a continuing presence of any particular person; e.g., a language does not seize to exist only because nobody happens to speak it at a given moment. Still, without people there are no languages.
Ontologically, social reality can be dealt with within the framework of a strictly realist or even materialist approach. Epistemologically, there might be some problems with judgements concerning social reality. How can I know, what rights I can execute by virtue of my ownership of a certain building? But similarly, many features about material reality are epistemically rather uncertain. How can I know how many species of bugs or bacteria there are in the world?
Adolf Reinach belonged to the realist branch of the phenomenological movement note 2. In his philosophy, the objective reality is seen as the foundation of consciousness. He rejects any idea to the effect that consciousness would constitute reality note 3. John R. Searle represents an even more earth-bound ontological standpoint. He claims to be a materialist, by which he means that all phenomena eventually are reducible to physics note 4. Nevertheless, he accepts social phenomena as real.
One should probably not stretch the comparison between Reinach's metaphysical commitment and Searle's views on these things too far. As far as social reality is concerned, they seem to be equally committed to its objective ontological status. Both would probably accept a common standpoint to the effect that social reality consists of features of the reality in which sociality plays a decisive role. Such are, for instance, communication and all kinds of legal institutions.
Reinach wrote on the dependence between communication and legal rights, obligations and property in his most seminal work Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes. This book briefly referred to as the Rechtsbuch, serves as the main source of this discussion of Reinach's concept of sociality. Searle is widely known for his work on speech act theory note 5, but in this case I shall focus on his book The Construction of Social Reality note 6 in which he sketches a general theory of institutional facts, i.e. social institutions. As far as Searle's conception of sociality is concerned, I refer mainly to this very book.
At least on three fundamental points, Reinach and Searle seem to agree. For my present purposes, this minimal agreement is enough. In their analysis of social reality, they assume that
In a fundamental sense, these two philosophers are addressing the same area of inquiry; they want to explore the essential features of phenomena belonging to human culture. Searle is rather well known within contemporary philosophy, and there is an ever-growing secondary literature on his themes. note 7 Hence, I shall mainly focus on Reinach's position and the ways in which it is fruitful as a complementary view to Searle's.
Above in this section, we have had a general exposition of questions concerning condition (a). In short, this condition states the following: It is not a matter of opinion or arbitrary consideration whether a water molecule consists of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Similarly, it is not a matter of opinion or arbitrary consideration of an observer whether a person has legal rights to claim or duties to fulfil. On this matter, Reinach and Searle are unanimous enough.
Furthermore, their common ground includes condition (b), i.e. the condition that the social realm of reality necessarily entails the existence of human beings. Or even more precisely, it entails the existence of conscious beings. Probably, humans are most likely to do this job.
At first glance, condition (b) on human dependence may seem to contradict condition (a) on objectivity. It might seem that a thing that belongs to objective reality could not possibly be dependent on the consciousness of anybody. However, there is no real contradiction involved. As Searle points out, one should distinguish between facts that are dependent on humans and, on the other hand, opinions about such facts note 8. Hence, social entities are dependent on the occurrence of certain mental facts in a certain population or in the minds of certain persons. Whenever significant mental processes appear, their consequences can be objectively identified. Searle discusses money and discloses that money is dependent on the trust a certain population has in it note 9. Reinach writes that a verdict may introduce a new social entity dependent on the mental acts of the judge and the people affected by that verdict note 10. Money as well as other forms of property claims is a real entity although rooted in a certain mental act or in a prevailing attitude or both.
Money is valid money because people think it is money. Property claims are valid because people accept the enactment performed by means of a certain mental act in the consciousness of a judge. These things are dependent on human consciousness but not arbitrarily. Once this dependence has been established, it stays in power according to its own intrinsic rules.
Searle only insufficiently discusses the nature of dependence relations. His theory falls short of describing the way in which social entities are interconnected and how they are dependent on non-social ones. Causality seems to be his only choice note 11.
In Reinach's work, dependence is understood in Husserlian terms, i.e. in terms of Husserl's formal ontology as presented in his Third Logical Investigation note 12. In accordance with this theory, Reinach writes his Theory of Negative Judgement (Zur Theorie des negativen Urteils) note 13, in which he argues for some substantial ontological distinctions between simple objects (Gegenstände) and states of affairs (Sachverhalte). One of his basic remarks concerns dependence relations, i.e. dependence relations between states of affairs. He states that states of affairs are related in terms of ground and consequent while simple objects are related in terms of cause and effect. note 14This is a claim about states of affairs in general; no matter whether they are material or social.
It is a very interesting feature of Searle's theory of social reality that he focuses on social facts but not on social objects. According to Reinach's vocabulary, Searle gives an account of social states of affairs. Consequently, sociality can appear only in the realm of fact but not in the realm of objects. If Searle is right about where to locate this feature called sociality, and if Reinach is right about the ground–consequence structure of dependence, then one should conclude that social phenomena are related to each other as grounds and consequences. Then causality is a phenomenon that does not belong to social reality. Instead, social reality seems to be a bundle of consequences of certain mental states of affairs.
Consequences are real. They are epistemologically objective and not a matter of taste or opinion. By this, I conclude the comments on condition (b).
Last but not least some short comments on condition (c), i.e. the condition that social phenomena are manifestations of interpersonal relationships between human beings. This wording is very loose. It seems that not every interpersonal relationship is necessarily social. Furthermore, it is obvious that Reinach and Searle exhibit very different opinions on how to describe these relationships. The main purpose of my current presentation is to show how Searle's theory and Reinach's ideas about sociality differ on this very matter.
Reinach and Searle depart from interpersonal relationships of a very peculiar sort, i.e. from the function of performative speech acts. They are almost equally interested in the very same types of communicative acts. Their field of interest encompasses social phenomena evoked in promises, declarations, obligations and claims. Because of the differences in background, they approach these problems quite differently.
Reinach tries to find a foundation of phenomena such as legal rights and claims. He finds such a foundation in the pre-legal social institution of promise. Searle's argument proceeds almost in the opposite direction. He studies a number of phrases of the kind 'I promise to pay you one Euro tomorrow'. Then he attempts to explain why the utterance of such phrases gives rise to claims and obligations.
Both Reinach and Searle, however, regard linguistic communication and language as a paradigm case of sociality note 15. Originally, however, the notion of sociality played only a minor role in Searle's speech act theory. He enters the discussion about sociality on a more general level. Although he sees language as a social phenomenon, and even as the basic social institution, he does not pay any particular attention to sociality as a feature of concrete language use. According to Searle's theory, 'sociality' refers explicitly to his notion of collective intentionality. note 16 Without too many arguments, Searle concludes that collective intentionality is a primitive notion from which individual intentionality is derived note 17.
Reinach gives sociality a strong position within his analysis of communication. His choice of terminology reveals this concern since he uses the term 'social act' in order to refer to communicative acts, i.e. Searle's illocutionary speech acts. In Reinach's work, the concept of sociality is analysed in terms of individual consciousness, i.e. in terms of individual subjects and their diversified mental experiences.
According to Reinach' Rechtsbuch, social acts are most prominently distinguished from other acts by the fact that they are in need of recognition, or uptake, (Vernehmung) by a second agent note 18. This characteristic feature of communication serves as a corner stone in the Reinachian theory of sociality. In Searle's speech act theory, there is a counterpart to Reinach's recognition. In order for an illocutionary act to be "fully" successful, the counterpart has to recognise it. note 19 However, the Searlean recognition is not a condition that makes the act social.
It follows from Reinach's view that sociality is essentially an unequal relationship since the involved agents have diversified functions. That is to say, a speaker and a listener are not engaged in a communicative act on equal terms. The speaker has sovereign power to initiate the act. However, the listener has the power to veto any such attempt.
For Searle, sociality is collectivity. He claims that a flock of hyenas hunting together exemplifies a kind of collective intentionality note 20. In collectives, essentially, the involved persons are equal. The act of hunting together is ascribed to each member on similar terms. If Searle accepts such cases as instances of sociality, it follows that he is unaware of the fundamental difference between essentially equal and essentially unequal interpersonal relationships. This is quite astonishing since he sees that members of collectives such as orchestras or football teams have diversified functions and goals within the collective task note 21. However, because of this analysis, the types of commitment they have are of the same kinds. All members of an orchestra perform their parts as contributions to the overall performance by the orchestra. In a Reinachian social act, the performer has a distinct goal from the goal of the target, i.e. the audience.
In short, Searle and Reinach agree to the extent that they see sociality as qualitatively distinct from mere plurality. By 'plurality', I refer to the idea that sociality could be analysed in terms of the sum of individual acts, intentions, commitments or the like. Reinach and Searle are well aware of the fact that social phenomena are not only quantitative iterations of individual ones.
In the subsequent sections of this article, Reinach's and Searle's concepts of sociality are discussed in the context of linguistic communication and then further explained in the context of the two traditions to which they belong. Eventually, I give some additional comments on the difference between Searle's idea of sociality as collectivity compared to Reinach's idea of qualitatively diversified sociality.
2. Communication: The Paradigm of Sociality
Linguistic communication serves as a paradigm case of sociality both according to Reinach and according to Searle. Reinach makes this very explicit by choosing the term 'social act' to denote communicative acts. Searle uses 'illocutionary act', a term he inherits from J. L. Austin. Nowadays, it is widely acknowledged that Reinach's theory of social acts anticipated the Anglo-Saxon speech act theory. note 22 Reinach published his study on the topic more than half a century before Searle's elaboration of Austin's work. note 23
Both theories have a common ground in the idea that people do things when they speak. With a more general phrasing, one might say that the two traditions agree upon the fact that communication changes the world. Moreover, such changes are different in kind from merely physically caused changes. Communication, thus, can be seen as a phenomenon indispensable for any kind of social reality.
I prefer to speak of communicative acts in order to underline the fact that Reinach and Searle speak of the same matter although they differ on several details. Hence, I conclude that in communicative acts we may change the social reality around us. Searle speaks of social facts being established while Reinach speaks of grounding of new states of affairs. The common point is that in communication we bring about real changes in our social reality.
According to the terminology used by Austin and Searle, this crucial phenomenon is an illocutionary act, i.e. an act of doing something in speaking. From Reinach's point of view, what he calls a social act is a primarily mental phenomenon – a conscious experience – that reaches out of the subjective sphere into the public sphere; i.e. it establishes something intersubjective.
On the micro-level of analysis, there is a significant methodological difference between Reinach and Searle. They have quite different attitudes towards the use of natural language as a part of their argument. Searle's rhetorical approach has its foundation in English idioms. This gives Searle a certain common-sense credibility – at least among Anglophone readers.
Reinach argues in terms of types of communicative acts. He speaks of promises, commands and other such act types without reference to particular phrases or idioms in any particular natural language. Searle gains credibility from his intimate relationship to English, whereas Reinach is able to discuss the matter on a more general level; in the Reinachian theory, communicative acts can be performed in any language.
For our present purposes, it would be beside the point to give a comprehensive account of speech act theory in contrast to the theory of social acts. I shall only mention certain features fundamental for understanding this kind of philosophy of language. In general, however, details of these theories are described only as far as they are relevant to our present topic, i.e. sociality.
Understanding linguistic communication is basic for understanding social institutions and sociality in the way Reinach and Searle describe these matters. Searle's claim that language is fundamental is not merely a dogmatic declaration; the paradigmatic status of linguistic communication is entailed by the way these theories are constructed.
Although Reinach and Searle have different points of view and eventually emphasise different features of linguistic communication, they agree upon the idea that many important social phenomena are dependent on speech, or language in a more general sense. A significant topic of the subsequent inquiry is describe what kinds of dependence one can establish between communicative acts and other social phenomena.
What then makes linguistic communication the paradigm of sociality? In Reinach's work, much can be traced back to the Husserlian notion of dependence or foundation. Social phenomena enjoy, in Husserl's terms, only relative independence. Obligations, rights, duties, and other legal or semi-legal are understood as distinct entities. However, they exist only because of the existence of certain prior phenomena.
Husserl's notion of foundation or grounding (German Fundierung) is a transitive one. Hence, every object B dependent of a certain object A is also dependent on all those objects that A is dependent of. This means that Reinach needs to construct a chain of dependence relations in order to connect the rather abstract notions of rights, duties and obligations to concrete objects such as living biological bodies.
Searle's ontological point of view differs from Reinach's but he arrives at a similar solution. According to his metaphysical view, language and other social institutions are eventually reducible to particles and forces. Although Searle hesitates to make explicit any theory dependence relations such as Husserl's, he frequently uses the terms like 'language-dependent' and 'constitute'.
The notion of illocutions is the common core in the explorations of linguistic communication made by Reinach and Searle. The idea is simply that in uttering such-and-such, a person does something. Furthermore, this something is situated in the social sphere. By speaking, we do not move mountains, but we may create empires or fortunes. It is an essential feature of illocutions that they bring about things by force of entailment. A communicative achievement is not a causal effect of the utterance.
In Austin's terminology, causal effects of speech acts are called perlocutionary. Such effects are not entailed by the communicative act but events merely contingently linked to the event of speaking. Reinach approaches the same phenomenon by means of his analysis of states of affairs. He says that states of affairs are linked to each other as ground and consequence. This is a view compatible with the analysis of illocutions; the official makes two persons a married couple in saying, "I declare you husband and wife". A Reinachian phrasing of the distinction between illocutions and perlocutions could go as follows: Illocutionary achievements note 24 are consequences of the fact that a certain utterance was made, e.g. a legally valid wedding takes place due to the fact that certain persons utter certain things under certain circumstances. On the other hand, perlocutionary effects are things caused by the event. For instance, a person may be surprised when a certain wedding takes place.
A synthesis of Reinach's theory with Searle's approach could be put in the following, slightly more technical terms: Illocutions are to be understood in terms of pairs or chains of interconnected states of affairs. The relevant connections are dependence relations between ground and consequence. Perlocutions, on the other hand, should be analysed in terms of pairs or chains of events. In this case, the relevant connections are supposed to be dependence relations between cause and effect.
In Reinach's ontology, events are seen as simple objects (Gegenstände), although they lack a continuing existence like the existence of sticks and stones. Searle has no elaborate theory of states of affairs, but still he builds his whole theory of social reality on something he calls facts. As far as I can see, Searle's notion of fact completely overlaps Reinach's notion of state of affairs.
The notion of fact has a slightly propositional flavour, since one might speak of "facts about X". In such a case 'facts' amounts to 'true propositions about X'. This is, however, not the way Searle wants to use the term. Another wording, 'it is a fact that X', comes closer to Reinach's notion of state of affairs.
Reinach and Searle have chosen different distinguishing features as their ground for classification of communicative acts. Searle speaks of five different illocutionary points: assertive point, commissive point, directive point, declarative point, and expressive point note 25. These categories are identified with regard to the purpose and consequences of the act. Reinach uses a slightly less elaborate classification, although he shows a greater interest in the social dimension of communication. He says that social acts belong to three main categories: social acts that are responses, social acts that demand a response, and simple social acts note 26. From this, we can conclude that Searle has a greater sense for distinctions regarding communicative purpose on an individual level, i.e. on the level of the individual speaker, whereas Reinach emphasises the distinct ways in which a communicative act establishes a social relationship between users of language.
Searle's illocutionary points are defined in terms of how the speaker executes his powers, i.e. how language functions as a tool. In an assertion, the speaker claims his power to make someone accept his judgements. In a commissive, directive or declarative speech act, the speaker claims a kind of jurisdiction over his fellows. And finally, in an expressive speech act, the speaker articulates an expression of his own attitudes or feelings.
Reinach's classification pays more attention to the way in which a communicative act establishes a social relationship and entails a necessary dependence between sociality and many subjects. He makes this point clear in his description of the distinction between a mere statement and an answer.
A statement and an answer may have the same linguistic expression. They may also refer to the very same fact. Nevertheless, a statement and an answer establish essentially different social relationships. When stating a fact, one commits oneself to believing that a certain proposition is true. When answering a question one acts in a significantly different social situation. By answering a question, a person relieves himself from an obligation. This obligation was established in a previous act of asking the question. Furthermore, in this previous act, the social relationship had a significantly different functional direction since the asking person was the active agent while the asked person was passive. In the answer, the relationship between active and passive agents is the opposite.
It is natural that linguistic communication serves as the paradigm case of sociality in Reinach's as well as in Searle's argumentation. However, one should be aware that they have slightly different reasons for this. According to Reinach's account, promises, commands, questions and answers are primitive social phenomena in which we establish social relationships necessary for other, more complex social institutions. Searle sees linguistic acts as necessary intermediaries between collective intentionality and social institutions with a more complex structure. According to Searle, sociality is established prior to linguistic acts, while Reinach sees sociality as something established in the linguistic act.
3. Reinach: An Intentionalist Approach to Sociality
At least partly, the difference in emphasis between Reinach and Searle can be explained with reference to historical context. Adolf Reinach (1883–1917) conducted his philosophical investigations in a tradition emanating from Franz Brentano note 27 (1838–1917) and further developed by Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) in his Logical Investigations (Logische Untersuchungen, 1st edition, 1900-1901 note 28). Although he initially owed a lot to his mentors, Reinach later became a philosopher and a phenomenologist very much in his own virtue. His commitment to realist phenomenology in spite of Husserl's turn towards transcendental idealism is a sign of his strength as an independent thinker. Throughout his short career, Reinach remained faithful to the principles of strict and careful phenomenological analysis as established by the members of the early Munich–Göttingen Circle of realist phenomenologists.
According to the Munich–Göttingen Circle's practice, phenomenological analysis was not the task of a lonely genius. Instead, it was seen as a collective enterprise, which should be carried out by many collaborators note 29. Thus, Reinach did not try to establish a comprehensive philosophical system. His work should be seen as a local contribution in a project supposedly involving all philosophers who might share his aims. note 30
In Reinach's work, there is no explicit argumentation on the notion of sociality. His concern with this topic is subjunct to other aims. In order to increase our understanding of Reinach's rather implicit concept of sociality, we should pay careful attention to three key features of his philosophy. These are:
In the context of Reinach's realist phenomenology, the concept of 'intentionality' refers to the idea that consciousness is constituted by mental acts – experiences (Erlebnisse) – which are directed at a certain intentional correlate, i.e. towards an object (Gegenstand). This basic notion of phenomenology constitutes the core of the Brentanist tradition and was further refined by Husserl. In this tradition, it is natural to use intentionality of mental acts as a basic category of analysis. Hence, it is the concept of experience and not the concept of action that underlies Reinach's argumentation. Unlike Austin, who emphasises the fact that one can do things with words, Reinach explains how certain experiences are such that they demand overtly physical expressions and involve more than one experiencing person.
Because of his overall commitment to the intentionalist approach, overtly physical actions are analysed in terms of mental acts, i.e. conscious experiences. Such an approach to action may seem odd, but it is well founded in the theory. I shall return to this point after a short survey of Reinach's realist commitment and his theory of states of affairs (Sachverhalte).
By 'realism' we shall understand a metaphysical conviction that the world is given to us in experiences as opposed to the view that the world is constituted in our experiences note 31. Things exist in the world independently of any perceiver or any mental acts. In historical terms, this means that Reinach rejected any need of phenomenological or other reductions in the manner introduced by Husserl.
Like Johannes Daubert (1877–1947), Alexander Pfänder (1870–1941), and other members of the Munich–Göttingen Circle of phenomenologists, Reinach was primarily influenced by the first edition of Husserl's Logical Investigations. However, the Munich reading of the Investigations was probably more realist than the author ever intended. There always was a certain discrepancy between Husserl's own reading of his work and the reading practised by his early followers in Munich and later in Göttingen. After the First World War, the realist tradition was upheld under Alexander Pfänder in Munich while Husserl and his later disciples conducted phenomenological research in the still prevailing transcendental tradition.
Of all early Munich phenomenologists, Daubert was probably the one closest to Husserl. note 32 As Daubert failed to make an academic career in the years preceding the First World War, Reinach became the leading figure of the phenomenologists that gathered around Husserl in Göttingen. Eventually, Reinach held an academic position (Privatdozent) under Husserl in Göttingen. note 33
During his years in Göttingen, Reinach became the foremost teacher of phenomenology. This may seem strange since his teachings were not anymore in line with Husserl's then current ideas. note 34 Eventually, Reinach even discouraged Husserl from re-writing the second edition of the Logical Investigations in an idealist fashion. Until 1914, Husserl remained the master of phenomenology while Reinach was the one who directly influenced new students in the field. And this influence was in the spirit of realist phenomenology. Consequently, Roman Ingarden (1893–1970) who was probably the most important student of Husserl and Reinach in Göttingen never gave up his criticism on Husserl's idealism. Despite their professional disputes, Reinach remained very close to Husserl until he was killed in action in November 1917 note 35. Husserl even wrote an obituary on Reinach in which he stated that German philosophy had "sustained a severe loss through Adolf Reinach's early death". note 36
Reinach's brand of phenomenology is concerned with the essences of phenomena. In his world, real things are given to us in intentional acts. In order to grasp the whole essence of a phenomenon, however, we need to reflect upon its nature (Wesen) more thoroughly. Reinach's approach is far from being cheap and superficial phenomenalism. On the contrary, he claims that typically we do not grasp the whole essence of a thing at first glance. Only a very careful reflection may reveal the accurate picture. note 37
According to Reinach's phenomenology, objects and even states of affairs are in the world in their own virtue. This approach has been criticised and even ridiculed for its seemingly strong inclination towards a two-world Platonist ontology. Even Husserl launched some criticism against Reinach on these grounds. note 38 However, if one reads Reinach's philosophy in a manner faithful to his outspoken policy, one may find such criticism beside the point.
Probably, there is only one major point on which Reinach inhabits a somewhat extravagant ontological position. In his argumentation about states of affairs (Sachverhalte), he introduces the category of negative states of affairs. The introduction of this category is a consequence of his general characteristics of states of affairs. In this characterisation he tries to make a clear distinction between, on one hand, simple objects (Gegenstände) and, on the other hand, states of affairs. According to Reinach, the distinction can be made on five levels or dimensions note 39:
The problem arises from the second part of point 4 in the characteristics. Reinach seems to claim that states of affairs come in pairs and that either one of them always obtains. A straightforward consequence of such a claim would be that there is a literally unlimited number of negative but still obtaining states of affairs. For instance, the state of affairs that I do not travel to Mars next weekend would be an obtaining one. Reinach's position on negative states of affairs is coupled with the idea that there are negative judgements; an idea severely criticised by Reinach's friend and tutor Johannes Daubert. note 40
Nevertheless, for our present purpose of exploring sociality, Reinach's conception of states of affairs offers more advantages than disadvantages. A core feature of Reinachian states of affairs is that they do not need human consciousness in order to obtain. This claim may seem odd when considered alongside with points 1 and 2 in the characteristics.
In point 1, Reinach claims that one state of affairs follows from another in terms of grounds and consequences. In terms of natural states of affairs, e.g. the order of planets in the solar system, this seems to be an epistemic claim. If the orbit of Mars is closer to the sun than the orbit of Pluto, then as a consequence of this, Mars cannot be the most remote planet in our solar system.
If one considers social states of affairs, however, the notions of ground and consequent seem to make sense even in an ontological sense. Laws, says Reinach in his Rechtsbuch, are issued in social acts of enactment (Bestimmung) note 41. Then there cannot obtain a state of affairs regulated by a certain law unless there has obtained a prior state of affairs of legal issuance.
For instance, the Euro became legal tender in certain member states of the European Union as a consequence of the fact that certain legal enactments were made. In certain other member states of the EU, no such enactment was made, and as a consequence of this lack of enactments, i.e. the obtaining negative states of affairs, the Euro has the status of foreign currency in those countries.
Reinach's claim on the modality of states of affairs suffers from similar problems with regard to the distinction between epistemic and ontological distinctions. It makes very little sense to talk about real modalities of natural states of affairs in an ontological sense. In what way could it be ontologically possible that there are planets orbiting other stars than our sun? Either there are such planets or not. In epistemic terms, it makes sense to speak about the possibility of planets and even biological life in remote solar systems.
In the social sphere, however, modalities seem more plausible in an ontological sense. One can speak of the real possibility that the Euro serves as legal tender in all member states of the European Union. It is not a matter of epistemic uncertainty, nor is it a matter of taste or belief in the countries not yet inside the currency union. It is a fact, but not a necessary one, that the Euro is the currency of all present states in the currency union. It is a real possibility that it becomes the currency of some further states.
The possibility of enlarging the Euro area is a consequence of the way in which this particular currency union was established. It is a consequence of the acts of legal issuance made by the member governments. These consequences affect not only the member states but also non-members.
Social institutions such as laws, obligations and currency unions are dependent on people. However, it is not at all obvious that they are causal effects of the things these people do. In this context, Reinach's idea about a second kind of dependence seems fruitful.
I have chosen to label Reinach's approach 'intentionalist'. One might argue that such a term is superfluous; he was simply dedicated to intentional acts as a matter of the historical context in which he appeared. In my present study of sociality, this historical context is of less interest than the systematic comparison with John Searle's approach. I have chosen to call Reinach 'intentionalist' whereas Searle should be called materialist in order to underline the significant differences.
Being an intentionalist Reinach approaches ontological problems with certain instruments. In his terminology, intention is the directedness in which the mental acts of a person are concerned with the objects of these acts. Mental acts are said to have intentional correlates. In a more colloquial phrasing, consciousness is always consciousness of something. However, this something, i.e. the intentional correlate of a certain act, does not necessarily exist. We may dream of pink elephants. In the dream, we experience these creatures and thus they are intentional correlates. Being the mental correlate of a dream by no means entails the existence of that correlate.
From the general notion of intentional acts, it follows that objects could be characterised and classified according to the types of mental acts to which they correlate. Reinach goes this way. In short, his classification goes as follows: He acknowledges that there are perceivable objects. Such objects he calls objects (Gegenstände). For the sake of a strict terminology, I suggest the term 'simple object'. Furthermore, Reinach recognises that there are acts of judgement, which seem to need a different kind of intentional correlate. He argues that judgements cannot me made about simple objects, e.g. about sticks or stones. Instead, he says, judgements are made about states of affairs, e.g. that sticks are softer than stones.
According to Reinach's characterisation of simple objects and states of affairs, you cannot see a state of affairs. But in seeing the simple objects involved in a state of affairs, you may recognise the state of affairs note 42. You may see a parking lot but no cars, in doing this you recognise the state of affairs that the parking lot is empty. In other words, 'seeing that the parking lot is empty' is a judgement about the status of this piece of land.
Until now, I have discussed intentionality merely from an individual point of view. Mental acts are experiences, says Reinach. However, not all experiences are individual and not all experiences are passive in the way hearing, seeing, or recognising tend to be. There are also acts in which a person does something. Hearing is passive while listening is active. Dreaming is passive while planning is active. Believing is passive while judging is active.
Reinach proceeds from passive perception to action without having to give up his basic idea about intentional experiences in this way. note 43 Listening is a mental experience but it is also something the agent does. Furthermore, Reinach argues that there are acts in which the agent changes the prevailing circumstances in the surrounding world. Reinach's example is the act of forgiving somebody. note 44 Your enemy's status in the world is changed when you forgive him. This, claims Reinach, takes place even if he never gains any knowledge about it.
Eventually, intentional acts can reach outside the mind of their owner in an even more radical way. Communicative acts, or social acts in Reinach's terminology are such. An act is social, claims Reinach, when it fulfils the following criteria note 45:
What makes an act truly social is stated by the fourth and fifth criteria. It means that a social act is constituted not only by the intentionality and agency of the speaker's consciousness. In addition to this primary intentionality and primary agency ascribed to a speaker, a social act is constituted by the intentionality and agency of a listener's consciousness; i.e. of the listener's mental acts. However, two consciousness minds can reach to each other only by means some external, physical medium. The physical expression of a social act provides this external medium.
My analysis of the very core in Reinach's intentionalist approach to sociality is this: Unlike individual acts, a social act is not merely a conscious experience of one person. Instead, it is simultaneously and necessarily dependent on conscious experiences of at least one other person. Moreover, the experiences of these persons are functionally diversified with regard to the dimensions expressed by the five criteria above.
On the level of intentionality, acts are identified in terms of their intentional correlate. This is the topic or the subject matter of a statement, proposition, question or some other social act. Although both agents confront the same state of affairs, they confront it from different points of view, i.e. under different epistemic modalities. A speaker, e.g. the initiator of a social act of oral statement, confronts the intentional correlate as a state of affairs to which he is committed. The listener, i.e. the recogniser of this social act; confronts this state of affairs merely as a proposed one.
On the level of agency, the social act is heavily dependent on its initiator, e.g. the speaker. The only weak moment of agency residing on the recognition side is a kind of de facto veto. If a person does not hear what somebody tells him, he prevents the social act from becoming completed. However, only in very institutionalised cases, a listener can consciously refuse from performing his part in the social act. For instance, a government official can refuse from taking into account a request or an appeal, which arrives too late. This refusal, however, must be expressed in an institutional de jure veto, which in turn is a social act.
On the level of affectedness, the difference between the initiator and the recogniser is of a similar kind as on the level of agency. If something in the surrounding world is changed by this act, only the initiator is to be made accountable for it. However, the change also affects the second agent. When new claims or obligations are created in acts of promise, it is the promisor but not the promisee that is responsible for it. Still, the promisee is the one who gains new power by the claims he can impose on the promisor.
Last but not least, on the level of recognition we have a clear reference to functional diversity. The second party has to recognise a social act for what it is, but he cannot be forced to do so. If the second party has no matching experience, then there is no social act. This is a case radically different from interpersonal relationships stemming from mere activity or from individual mental acts. You cannot avoid being stabbed or being despised merely by not having an experience of that thing. Social acts you do avoid by neglecting them. Here we see the importance of the physical expression of the act. The passive counterpart recognises the social act by accepting a certain word, text, or other sign as an expression of that act. The initiator, e.g. the speaker, has an entirely different relationship to the expression. He has to choose it or articulate it, and display it to his counterpart.
As a conclusion of this section, I want to summarise the characteristic features of Reinach's intentionalist conception of sociality. Intentionality is a feature of consciousness; i.e. of experiences that are called mental acts. It seems that single agents hold experiences. However, many agents may have the same intentional correlate of their individual acts. Furthermore, there are certain acts called social acts that are doings by one agent but constituted by two different agents having conscious acts of two different kinds of the same intentional correlate. These two constituting experiences differ mainly on agency; i.e. they are experiences belonging to two individual conscious beings. The intentional correlate of a social act has two levels of which the primary level is the topic of communication. The secondary level, i.e. the level of sociality, is given in the fact that this very social act is performed. Both these levels are incarnated in the physical expression of the act. Only the physical expression is necessarily perceivable.
4. Searle: A Materialist Approach to Sociality
John R. Searle (b. 1932) declares himself a rigorous materialist. note 46 Accordingly, he believes in one world, which is firmly founded upon physical features. All mental things are dependent upon this physical world. However, he strongly emphasises the view that mental features do not need to be less real than physical ones. The former ones are only dependent on the latter. In short, Searle believes in a world in which languages and legal institutions are founded upon complex bio-chemical structures and processes.
Throughout Searle's argumentation about social reality, only social facts seem to be of interest. He mentions social objects very briefly and reduces them to dummies, which are not objects in a proper sense. note 47 By this strategy, Searle avoids speaking of money, screwdrivers, promises or laws. Instead, he speaks of the fact that something is a screwdriver, a one-dollar bill, a promise or a legal stipulation. In Reinach's terms, Searle's analysis of sociality is merely concerned with states of affairs.
In Searle's world, there are only material objects. However, his worries about sociality are based on the obvious fact that objects have functions and that some functions seem to have no grounding in the physical nature of that object. As an example of discontinuity between material properties and function, Searle discusses money. note 48 He assumes that money is a paradigmatic non-linguistic social institution whereas a promise is a paradigmatic linguistic social institution. Searle distinguishes between causal agentive functions and institutional facts. note 49 According to this distinction, a screwdriver has a function primarily dependent on its material properties; i.e. a screwdriver has its function because of its causal powers. Money and linguistic utterances, however, have their function by force of institutions; i.e. their function is due to collective intentionality.
In this argument, the main point is that money has no value or other function independent from the use of it. Hence, 'being money' is a status function note 50, i.e. a social fact. Assignment of function expresses a basic form of sociality. Astonishingly enough, in Searle's taxonomy of facts note 51, assignment of function always is a merely social fact and thereby a mental phenomenon. He even claims it to be a social fact that the heart functions to pump blood.note 52 In short, according to Searle, there are no non-social functions.
Assignment of function in Searle's sense, can be a purely internal mental act. This means that Searle states considerably less rigorous criteria for sociality than Reinach does. You need no second party nor do you need any physical expression of your act if you wish to ascribe the function of screwdriver to a certain physical object.
Searle's generously broad concept of sociality cannot easily be compared to Reinach's strictly qualified notion of sociality. Such a comparison requires a number of further qualifications. Since Reinach's concept of sociality was developed within the sphere of legal and semi-legal institutions, it seems natural to restrict our comparison to institutional facts as described by Searle. note 53 Two key features related to this discussion are Searle's notions of collective acceptance and collective intention. Without a clear understanding of these notions, we cannot bridge the conceptual gap between Reinach and Searle.
For any social institution, it is essential that it be accepted by the people to whom it applies. Hard currencies are social phenomena accepted by very large numbers of institutional and non-institutional agents. A dollar is accepted as having a certain value in the United States as well as in Russia. Nevertheless, it has the status of legal tender only in the U.S. but not in Russia. Even in Russia, the collective acceptance of U.S. dollars tends to be stronger than the acceptance of Russian roubles. Still, nobody would deny that roubles are legal tender in Russia. Under certain circumstances, you might even break the law by using dollars in Russia.
Searle would analyse this as a case of collective acceptance of two institutional facts about dollars and roubles and their status functions as currencies note 54. His notion of collective acceptance seems very similar to Reinach's notion of recognition, which was given as an essential feature of social acts. To a certain extent, this similarity is striking; if an order is an order only when recognised as an order, then it seems that acceptance and recognition are identical. However, Reinach's recognition and Searle's collective acceptance are only partly overlapping categories. And, furthermore, they are necessary features of social phenomena for partly different reasons.
According to Reinach's account, recognition is a moment of a social act qualitatively different from the moment of doing or initiating the act. The two moments are functionally diversified with regard to the topic and with regard to the communicative situation. An officer and a recruit are in essentially different positions with regard to a command. Searle's notion of collective acceptance has very little sensibility for this difference. According to his notions, a command is a command because the two of them accept it as such. It is a social fact that something, e.g. a loud utterance made by a male person wearing a uniform, counts as a command, or functions as a command.
Recognition in the Reinachian sense is only partly applicable to Searle's analysis of collective acceptance. Obviously, both have an intentional note 55 correlate, which primarily consists of the topic of the act, e.g. the fact that a certain piece of paper is a one-dollar bill. However, this does not exhaust the intentional correlate of Reinachian recognition. As far as I understand Reinach correctly, the social component consists in the reciprocal consciousness of the physical expression as a reference to the topic and to the state of affairs that two the conscious parties are involved in a relationship of this kind.
Searle locates the social aspect of acceptance partly as a moment of the act itself and partly as something that he calls Background note 56. He claims that collective intentionality, i.e. we-intentions, is a primitive notion. This means that the social component is a non-detachable element of individual consciousness of this sort. Unlike Reinach who locates the characteristic moments of his social acts in different agents, Searle claims that the we-intention resides in one individual note 57.
Searle admits that he lacks a good argument in favour of the thesis that collective intentions are more basic than individual intentions note 58. Nevertheless, as far as he uses this thesis as a cornerstone of his analysis, we have to consider its consequences.
A concluding comparison between Searle's notion of institutional facts and Reinach's notion of states of affairs which are consequences of social acts goes as follows: According to Searle, institutional facts such as property claims are created because a sufficient number of individuals have we-intentional conscious acts in which each of them we-accepts this institutional fact. According to Reinach, a property claim is a consequence of the fact that somebody performs a social act.
Dependence plays a crucial role in Searle's argumentation, as he wants to make the leap from merely material reality to a world that contains money, laws and obligations. Compared to Reinach, however, Searle has a less elaborate approach to the nature of dependence. For instance, he makes no distinction between effects and consequences in the way Reinach does. Although Searle sees the difference between objects and facts (states of affairs), he does not seem to need any direct dependence relationship between states of affairs. According to his metaphysics, states of affairs seem to be interconnected through the relationships connecting simple objects contained in them.
Searle's materialist approach leads him into a situation in which he chooses material objects and causality as the bedrock on which he builds his theory. These components of the world he takes to be immutable in terms of human taste and other preferences. Because of this stance, he locates sociality into the sphere of facts, i.e. states of affairs. This seems to be safe because states of affairs, according to his view, are firmly founded upon material objects. States of affairs do not add new objects to the world. Instead, changes in the configuration of objects may change the states of affairs.
States of affairs, social as well as merely material ones, are dependent on the objects involved. These simple objects are, in turn, causally interconnected. Hence, states of affairs appear only because of the causal connections between these simple objects. In this way, the Searlean conclusion would be as follows: Sociality should be understood as a causal effect of the way in which the human brains function. note 59 Furthermore, this effect includes our ability or disposition to approach the world consciously together with other conscious agents.
In contrast to this, we can state a Reinachian conclusion in a similar wording: Sociality should be understood as a consequence of the fact that we are reciprocally conscious of the fact that we approach the world together with at least one other agent in diversified but still functionally compatible experiences.
5. Conclusion: Individual, Collective, and Social Acts
My conclusion of the comparison between Reinach and Searle is that these two approaches to sociality should be understood as compatible. The contrast between Searle's "materialist" policy and Reinach's "intentionalist" background is not big enough to make their findings incompatible. Searle seems to claim his "materialism" merely as a general metaphysical commitment. Reinach's way of using intentional acts as his main tool reflects no major conflict with Searle. Their commitment to realist ontology and their qualitative interpretation of sociality form a sound basis for a synthetic reading of their theories. The key issue is how to interpret the third minimal condition of sociality as stated in the introduction of this paper. My phrasing was that "social phenomena are manifestations of interpersonal relationships between human beings". The issue is how to identify "interpersonal relationships" in a reasonable way.
Searle responds to this condition by presenting his notion of collective intentionality. An interpersonal relationship is established in we-intentionality, i.e. collectivity is in the minds of the people involved. Of course, a person might have false beliefs regarding what "we" are doing. note 60 In a normal case, however, we know whether we do something together with other persons or not. This goes for playing different instruments as part of a performance of a symphony as well as it goes for joint action of pushing a car together.
Reinach's response is contained in the stricter notion of sociality entailed by his analysis of social acts. Interpersonal relationships need an over manifestation in terms of a physical expression, e.g. a linguistic utterance. Otherwise, according to Reinach's argument, the objective consequences of a social relationship do not obtain. A social relationship is established when a social act is completed, i.e. successfully performed by an initiating agent. Rights, duties and other objective but still social consequences obtain only if the act is founded on two conscious minds and a physical medium. A person may entertain a purpose to fulfil a promise, but there is no obligation concerning this fulfilment unless the act has been overtly manifested.
In order to pay equal tribute to Reinach's narrow and rigid concept of sociality as well as to Searle's broader concept, I introduce a tripartite analysis of intentional phenomena. A division into individual, collective, and social phenomena seems to make sense with regard to the interplay between intentional acts and interpersonal relationships. Reinach's conception of individual intentionality seems to coincide without problems with Searle's. The problem concerns categorisation of any intentional phenomena in which many individuals are involved with the world. My proposal is to distinguish between collectivity and sociality on the non-individual side. In this way, we can save the plurality of aspects of both conceptions in order to allow for a rich description of social phenomena.
According to Searle's analysis, collectivity is the most basic notion of the three. Sociality is a kind of externalisation of collectivity, while individuality is internally derived from collectivity. A single musician's performance of his part of a symphony serves as an illuminating example. Performing the symphony cannot be understood without reference to collective intentionality. The orchestra performs the composition only as a whole. The performance is a result of the collective intentions held by all the members of the orchestra. Derived from the collective intentionality held by 95 musicians, there are 95 tokens of individual intentionality that is concerned with the individual contribution of each single musician.
Reinach does not refer to collectivity at all. Nevertheless, he acknowledges the kind of jointness or togetherness expressed by a flock of hyenas hunting together or an orchestra performing a symphony. He copes with this problem by introducing a concept of modification of social acts note 61. The interesting modifications with respect to collectivity are the following: Sometimes a group of people may issue a command jointly. Or, a command issued by one person may affect a group of people. An officer commands a body of soldiers, but not each soldier personally. A verdict given by a jury is collectively given; it is not a sum of a number of individually given verdicts. In such cases, the individuals that form a collective body are united by a clearly different relationship than the one they establish with their counterpart by jointly performing a social act.
From Reinach's point of view, an orchestra playing a symphony is a modification of the speaker in a simple social act. It does not matter for the sociality of the phenomenon – be it promise or musical performances – whether there is one speaker or player or whether there are one hundred speakers or players. Sociality, in Reinachian terms, enters the scene when the audience is involved. One might compare a rehearsal of a symphony with an actual performance of that very symphony. In both cases, the players are the same, the musical expression is the same and the individual contributions by the musicians are the same. But only in the performance, there is a social relationship established between the orchestra and its audience.
A tripartite analysis, which makes a distinction between strict sociality and mere collectivity, should bridge the methodological gap between Reinach and Searle. It seems that Reinach and Searle are quite happy with an ontology according to which individuals, as well as their experiences and actions are basic. The difficulties grow from their different way of approaching plurality. A ghost of collective consciousness haunts Searle. He wants to make sure that individuals only can be conscious. note 62 Reinach has no explicit stance against collective consciousness, but still he takes for granted that only individuals qualify as conscious agents. As a minimum requirement, a social act is dependent on two functionally diversified conscious individuals. The social act is not an experience ascribed to any derived social being.
Taking Reinach's strict sociality into account, one could preferably divide the Searlean social facts into two qualitatively different categories. On one hand, we could speak of genuinely social phenomena, and on the other hand, of merely collective phenomena. Orchestras, collective hallucinations, and flocks of hunting hyenas belong to the category of merely collective phenomena. Musical performances, legislation, commanding, and business transactions are phenomena that belong to the category of genuinely social phenomena. In accordance with Reinach's modification principle, we can also state that collectives can be involved as parties in social relationships. In such cases, collectivity is a subordinate relationship within the social relationship.
In short, the division into individual, collective and social phenomena can be illuminated by reference to what happens in a concert hall: Everybody present has his own individual experience of the music. The social aspect of the performance is contained in the fact that the musicians perform the music in order to have it acknowledged by the audience. Similarly, the audience receives the music as performance and not merely as a cluster of accidental noise. Collectivity is involved since the musicians play jointly and the audience is addressed as one body.
Reinach's theory shares the advantage with Searle's theory that neither of them approaches sociality, or collectivity, in terms of summation. Still, neither of them shows enough sensitivity to the rich variety of non-individual intentional phenomena. Searle remains sweeping throughout his argumentation. Reinach's approach is more elaborate on many details but he pays too little attention to collectivity outside modifications of social acts. By stating an explicit distinction between sociality and collectivity, we are able to fully cash in the implications of their theories.
Notes:
In his book The Construction of Social Reality (The Free Press, New York, 1995, p. 190), Searle distinguishes between 'brute reality' and 'social reality'. Reinach speaks in Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes ([The a priori Foundations of Civil Law] Sämtliche Werke, Philosophia Verlag, Wien, 1989, p. 246) of 'the sphere of natural objects' (German; "die Sphäre der Naturgegenstände") as opposed to 'objects emanating from social acts' (German; 'aus sozialen Akten erwachsende Gegenständlichkeiten').
On Reinach's realist position as opposed to Husserl's transcendental idealism, cf. Karl Schuhmann 'Husserl und Reinach' (in K. Mulligan, ed., Speech Act and Sachverhalt. Reinach and the Foundations of Realist Phenomenology, Martinus Nijhoff, Dordrecht, 1987) and James M. Dubois Judgment and Sachverhalt. An Introduction to Adolf Reinach's Phenomenological Realism (Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1995). In his programmatic lecture Über Phenomenologie ([On Phenomenology] Sämtliche Werke, Philosophia Verlag, Wien, 1989, pp. 531–550) presented in Marburg in 1914, Reinach declares that states of affairs obtain regardless of anybody being conscious of them. [p. 545: "Sachverhalte aber bestehen, gleichgültig, welches Bewußtsein sie erfaßst und ob überhaupt ein Bewußtsein sie erfaßt."] Searle states his metaphysical attitude in The Construction of Social Reality (p. 7): "Here, then, are the bare bones of our ontology: We live in a world made up entirely of physical particles in fields of force. Some of these are organized into systems. Some of these systems are living systems and some of these living systems have evolved consciousness. With consciousness comes intentionality, the capacity of the organism to represent objects and states of affairs in the world to itself. Now the question is, how can we account for the existence of social facts within that ontology?" His locus classicus is of course Speech Acts. An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1969). The Free Press, New York, 1995. His speech act theory has been debated in several books during the last three decades. From a Reinachian point of view, his philosophy of language is penetrated in Armin Burkhardt (ed.) Speech Acts, Meaning and Intentions. Critical Approaches to the Philosophy of John R. Searle (Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 1990). Lately, his work on social institutions has evoked discussion. For instance, the April 1999 volume of The American Journal of Economics and Sociology (Vol. 58, No. 2) was dedicated to topics closely related to his ideas in this field. In The Construction of Social Reality (pp. 7–9), Searle emphasises the difference between "ontologically objective" and "ontologically subjective" entities, both which are real. cf. The Construction of Social Reality, pp. 37-43. In Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes ([The a priori Foundations of Civil Law] Sämtliche Werke, Philosophia Verlag, Wien, 1989, pp. 246–247), Reinach writes that property claims are made real by an enactment included in the verdict made by a judge. [Eigentum und Anspruch existieren kraft der Bestimmung.] In The Construction of Social Reality (p. 129), Searle writes: "When I say, for example, that I am able to speak English, I am talking about a causal capacity of my brain [...]". Cf. Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen ([Logical Investigations] Husserliana XVIII, XIX/1, XIX/2, Nijhoff, Dordrecht 1975, 1984). Cf. his Sämtliche Werke ([Collected Works], Philosophia Verlag, Wien, 1989, pp. 95–140). Cf. 'Zur Theorie des negativen Urteils' (Sämtliche Werke, Philosophia Verlag, Wien, 1989, p. 115). Searle writes explicitly in The Construction of Social Reality (p. 60) that "the institution of language is logically prior to other institutions." In his Nichtsoziale und soziale Akte ([Non-social and Social Acts] Sämtliche Werke, Philosophia Verlag, Wien, 1989, pp. 355–360) Reinach points out that social relationships are constituted in social acts, i.e. in communicative acts (Soziale Verhältnisse konstituieren sich durch soziale Akte, p. 360). Cf. The Construction of Social Reality (p. 26): "By stipulation I will henceforth use the expression 'social fact' to refer to any fact involving collective intentionality." Cf. The Construction of Social Reality (p. 24): "Collective intentionality is a biologically primitive phenomenon that cannot be reduced to or eliminated in favor of something else."; 'Intentions in Communication' (in P. R. Cohen, J. Morgan and M. E. Pollack, eds., Intentions in Communication, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass,. 1990, 404): "We-intentions cannot be analyzed into sets of I-intentions, even I-intentions supplemented with beliefs, including mutual beliefs, about the intentions of other members of a group." Cf. his Sämtliche Werke (Philosophia Verlag, Wien, 1989, p. 159). In Speech Acts. An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1969, p. 47), Searle writes: "In the case of illocutionary acts we succeed in doing what we are trying to do by getting our audience to recognize what we are trying to do. But the 'effect' on the hearer in not a belief or response, it consists simply in the hearer understanding the utterance of the speaker. It is this effect that I have been calling the illocutionary effect." Cf. The Construction of Social Reality, p. 38. In his paper 'Intentions in Communication' (in P. R. Cohen, J. Morgan and M. E. Pollack, eds., Intentions in Communication, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1990, 403) Searle writes: "Another clue that collective intentions are different from a mere summation of individual intentions is that often the derived form of an individual intention will have a different content from the collective intention from which it is derived. We can see this in the following sort of example. Suppose we are on a football team and we are trying to execute a pass play. That is, the team intention, we suppose, is in part expressed by 'We are executing a pass play.' But now notice: no individual member of the team has this as the entire content of his intention, for no one can execute a pass play by himself. Each player must make a specific contribution to the overall goal." Officially, Searle pays no tribute to Reinach at all. Unofficially, Searle has referred to him as the person "who is supposed" to have invented speech act theory. Searle has elaborated his version of the speech act theory since the late sixties in books such as Speech Acts. An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (Cambridge University Press, Oxford, 1969) and Expression and Meaning. Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1979) and eventually together with Daniel Vanderveken in Foundations of Illocutionary Logic (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1985). His main source of inspiration was J.L. Austin's posthumous How to do Things with Words (ed. by J.O. Urmson & Marina Sbisà, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1962). Adolf Reinach presented his theory of social acts as early as in the year 1911 in Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes ([The a priori Foundations of Civil Law] Sämtliche Werke, Philosophia Verlag, Wien, 1989, pp. 246–247). My term "illocutionary achievements" should not be confused with "illocutionary effect" as described by Searle in Speech Acts (p. 47). Cf. J.R. Searle and D.Vanderveken, Foundations of Illocutionary Logic, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1985, pp. 51–59. Cf. Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes [The a priori Foundations of Civil Law] in Sämtliche Werke, Philosophia Verlag, Wien, 1989, p. 162. According to Karl Schuhmann's article 'Brentano und die Münchener Phänomenologie' ([Brentano and the Munich Phenomenology], Brentano Studien 1, 1988, pp. 97-107), Brentano had a considerable influence not only on Reinach but also on the Munich Circle in general. One should be aware of the fact that Reinach's philosophy was inspired by the first edition of Husserl's Investigations. The Husserliana edition (Husserliana XVIII, XIX/1, XIX/2, Nijhoff, Dordrecht 1975, 1984) provides the first as well as the second version of the Investigations. Reinach states this phenomenological policy in his programmatic lecture Über Phenomenologie ([On Phenomenology] Sämtliche Werke, Philosophia Verlag, Wien, 1989, p. 531–550) presented in Marburg in the year 1914. Eventually, there were not as many collaborators and followers as Reinach might have hoped for. This is partly due to the fact that many members of the Munich–Göttingen circle volunteered to the front in the First World War. However, there are philosophers such as the Polish ontologist Roman Ingarden (1893–1970) who very much continued on the path set by Reinach. Even Searle and his Anglo-Saxon speech act theory could belong to this tradition. J. L. Austin's seminal work in this field has been called phenomenological (cf. James F. Harris, 'A New Look at Austin's Linguistic Phenomenology', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 36, 1975–1976, pp. 384–390). Nonetheless, we have no evidence of direct influence on Austin by Reinach. According to James M. Dubois (Judgment and Sachverhalt. An Introduction to Adolf Reinach's Phenomenological Realism, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1995, p. 154), Reinach's realism entails that one has to "accept what is given; [...] accept that the possibility of essential intuition is grounded in the object of knowledge, that it has an ontological basis, and that no peculiar attitude or mental operation will make possible essential intuition unless the object itself belongs to the category of essences which intelligibly ground necessary states of affairs". As late as in the thirties, Husserl is said to have regretted the fact that he had lost contact with Daubert as a friend and as a collaborator, since he "obviously saw in Daubert someone who could interpret his aspirations and ideas to other people, and at the same time function as a faithful touchstone for his own attempts to build up a well-founded philosophy" (K. Schuhmann, 'Structuring the Phenomenological Field: Reflections on a Daubert Manuscript' in W. S. Hamrick, ed., Phenomenology in Practice and Theory, Martinus Nijhoff, Dordrecht, 1985, p. 6). Reinach's short career as philosopher is recollected by Karl Schuhmann and Barry Smith in 'Adolf Reinach: An Intellectual Biography' (K. Mulligan, ed., Speech Act and Sachverhalt. Reinach and the Foundations of Realist Phenomenology, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht, 1987, pp. 3–27.) According to Karl Schuhmann ('Husserl und Reinach' [Husserl and Reinach], in K. Mulligan, ed., Speech Act and Sachverhalt. Reinach and the Foundations of Realist Phenomenology, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht, 1987, pp. 239–256.), it seems clear that Husserl and Reinach developed in diametrically opposite directions (p. 252: "Vergleicht man Reinachs Gang von der Urtelstheorie zum Rechtsbuch mit Husserls Weg von den Logischen Untersuchungen zu den Ideen, so fällt auf, daß beide sich nicht so sehr parallel zueinander als vielmehr in entgegengestzter Richtung entwickelten.) The correspondence between Reinach and Husserl was almost cordial but it contains more personal information than philosophical discussion (cf. Edmund Husserl, Briefwechsel [Correspondence], vol II, Die münchener Phänomenologen [The Munich Phenomenologists], ed. by Elisabeth and Karl Schuhmann, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1994). An English translation of Husserl's obituary appeared in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 35, 1974–1975, pp. 571–574. The German original was published in Kanstudien, XXIII, 1919. Cf. Reinach's lecture Über Phänomenologie ([On Phenomenology] Sämtliche Werke, Philosophia Verlag, Wien, 1989, pp. 531–550). Cf. James M. Dubois, Judgment and Sachverhalt. An Introduction to Adolf Reinach's Phenomenological Realism, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1995, pp. 102–104. Cf. 'Einleitung in die Philosophie' ([Introduction to Philosophy] Sämtliche Werke, Philosophia Verlag, Wien, 1989, p. 427). Cf. Karl Schuhmann's article 'Johannes Dauberts Kritik der "Theorie des negativen Urteils" von Adolf Reinach' in in K. Mulligan, ed., Speech Act and Sachverhalt. Reinach and the Foundations of Realist Phenomenology (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht, 1987, pp. 227–238). Cf. Sämtliche Werke, Philosophia Verlag, Wien, 1989, pp. 240–241. Cf. Sämtliche Werke, Philosophia Verlag, Wien, 1989, p. 119. Armin Burkhardt has presented a taxonomy of Reinachian conscious experiences, i.e. mental acts, in his article 'Der Sprechakt als kooperative Anstrengung' ([The Speech Act as Co-operative Effort] Kommunikation und Kooperation, ed. by F. Liedtke and Rudi Keller, Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen, 1987, pp. 185–215. Cf. Sämtliche Werke, Philosophia Verlag, Wien, 1989, p. 159. Reinach uses the terms Intentionalität, Spontaneität, Fremdpersonalität, Vernehmungsbedürftigkeit, and Außenseite (Sämtliche Werke, Philosophia Verlag, Wien, 1989, p. 160). Cf. The Construction of Social Reality, p. 41: "Our aim is to assimilate social reality to our basic ontology of physics, chemistry, and biology." Cf. The Construction of Social Reality, p. 36: "In the case of social objects, however, the grammar of the noun phrases conceals from us the fact that, in such cases, process is prior to product. Social objects are always, in some sense we will need to explain, constituted by social acts; and, in a sense, the object is just the continuous possibility of activity."; p. 57: "What we think of as social objects, such as governments, money, and universities, are in fact just placeholders for patterns of activities." Cf. The Construction of Social Reality, pp. 37–43. Searle writes (The Construction of Social Reality, pp. 123–124): "within the category of agentive functions I distinguish between functions performed solely in virtue of causal and other brute features of phenomena and functions performed only by way of collective acceptance." Cf. The Construction of Social Reality, p. 41–43. Cf. The Construction of Social Reality, p. 121. Searle (The Construction of Social Reality, p. 123) admits that "it sounds odd to say that the fact that this is a screwdriver is a species of mental fact, that it is ontologically subjective even though epistemically objective". Searle focuses on the topic in The Construction of Social Reality, but he shows interest in social facts already in Speech Acts. Searle (The Construction of Social Reality, p. 111) gives a simplified account of collective acceptance in the form "We accept (S has power (S does A))". Searle's conception of intentionality is roughly the same as the one used by Reinach and the realist phenomenologists. He discusses the notion in his book Intentionality. An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind. (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1983). Cf. The Construction of Social Reality, pp. 131–132. Searle elaborates this idea in his article 'Collective Intentions and Actions' (in P. R. Cohen, J. Morgan and M. E. Pollack, eds., Intentions in Communication, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass,. 1990). He writes (The Construction of Social Reality, p. 110–111): "I do not know if its true and I certainly have not demonstrated it, but it is worth further exploration". Cf. The Construction of Social Reality (p. 144): "Instead of saying, the person behaves the way he does because he is following the rules of the institution, we should just say, First (the causal level), the person behaves the way he does, because he has a structure that disposes him to behave that way; and second (the functional level), he has come to be disposed to behave that way, because that's the way that conforms to the rules of the institution."; and 'Collective Intentions and Actions' (p. 408): "An action of, say, raising one's arm has two components: a 'mental' component and a 'physical' component. The mental component both represents and causes the physical component, and because the form of causation is intentional causation, the mental causes the physical of way of representing it." Cf. 'Collective Intentions and Actions' (p. 408): "If I am having a hallucination in supposing that someone else is helping me push the car, that I am only pushing as part of our pushing, then I am mistaken not only in my belief that there is somebody else there pushing as well but also about what it is that I am doing. I thought I was pushing as part of our pushing, but that is not in fact what I was doing." Reinach claims in Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes ([The a priori Foundations of Civil Law] Sämtliche Werke, Philosophia Verlag, Wien, 1989, p. 164) that "doing something together with somebody" (zusammen mit der anderen) is a modifikation in which there are more than one person on the same side in the social relationship. Cf. 'Collective Intentions and Actions' (p. 402): "There really is such a thing as collective intentional behavior that not the same as the summation of individual intentional behavior."; and The Construction of Social Reality (p. 25): "It is indeed the case that all my mental life is inside my brain, and all your mental life is inside your brain, and so on for everybody else."