Professor John R. Searle
December 6, 2005
Philosophy 130
Final Exam Study Questions
1. What is collective intentionality and what role does it play in Searle’s theory of
institutional facts?
2. What is the Background? Why does Searle need this notion for a theory of social
facts?
3. Could the phenomenon of cooperative behavior be explained by some notion other
than collective intentionality?
4. What is a status function? Do status functions require status indicators?
5. Why does Searle require codifiability as a feature of an institutional fact?
6. Why does language play a necessary role in Searle’s theory of institutional facts?
Why couldn’t Searle simply appeal to cooperative behavior and collective intentionality
to build institutions?
7. What is the Deductive Nomological model of explanation? Apply the D/N method to
the following story and discuss its adequacy in explaining the social phenomenon in
question: Sherry, a fundamentalist evangelical Christian (FEC) voted Republican in the
last election.
8. Why is the notion of rationality supposed to be essential in explaining social behavior?
Wouldn’t it be sufficient to explain social behavior solely in terms of patterns of
behavior?
9. What is meant by “the hermeneutic circle?” Why is it supposed to be a problem for
interpretavism?
10. It is true that when an agent acts on a reason, sometimes the reason motivates the
action in virtue of appealing to a desire in his or her motivational set. If this is the case,
is it ever possible for an agent to act on a reason that does not appeal to a desire (broadly
construed)in the motivational set? What sort of argument could be given that such
reasons exist? Compare your answers with those of Searle and Williams.
11. What is anomalous monism? Does anomalous monism solve the freedom of the will
problem?
12. Immediately after September 11, 2001,. Residents of the Central Valley hung
American flags on their houses. Several years later, it is not uncommon to see these same
flags now tattered and faded hanging everywhere on houses throughout the Central
Valley. The flags have become shreds of fabric that barely resemble what they were
intended to be. Discuss this shredded flag phenomenon in light of Charles Taylor’s
criteria of common and intersubjective meanings.
13. Provide a functional analysis of the Hopi rain dances. Discuss the manifest and
latent function of the phenomenon. Does the functional analysis meet the criteria for a
scientific explanation in Hempel’s sense?
14. Given the specific conditions of a system, couldn’t we explain and predict the
particular functions of the constituents that make up the system? Is this an argument
against the observer-relativity of functions?
15. What does Searle mean by the claim that society has a logical structure?
16. How can social facts be both epistemically objective and ontologically subjective?
17. What are the problems that a purely empirical analysis of social phenomena poses?
18. Given the two methods of analysis in social sciences, an objective, empirical
approach and a subjective meaningful approach, where does Searle’s account of social
institutions fit? Why does Searle feel that his approach is naturalistic?
19. Searle claims that human rights are status functions. Analyze and discuss.
20. What is meant by “intentional causation?” How does it differ from other sorts of
causation? What role does intentional causation play in an explanation of human
behavior?
21. How does Searle account for the fact that social institutions are rule structured yet
they are created from behavior that itself is not rule structured?
22. Explain the relations between the following notions: collective intentionality, status
functions, constitutive rules, deontic powers and institutional facts.
23. Explain the following concepts and distinctions. Give examples of each.
a. Collective intentionality and individual intentionality
b. Brute facts and institutional facts.
c. Regulative rules and constitutive rules.
d. Status functions and agentive functions.
e. The causal ‘by means of” relation and the constitutive “by way of” relation
f. The accordion effect and basic actions.
g. Observer relative and observer independent.