The Ontogeny of Social Ontology: Steps to Shared Intentionality and Status Functions

Abstract

Searle’s (1995) book The Construction of Social Reality is one of the great works of late 20th-century philosophy. Like all great philosophical works, it provides fresh new insights and perspectives on phenomena that lie right before our eyes every minute of every day. After Searle’s work, in our view, no right-minded thinker can seriously maintain a narrowly reductionist view of the nature of human experience. After The Construction of Social Reality, in our view, no right-minded thinker need take seriously philosophical theories that ignore the fundamentally social nature of many of the most important aspects of our daily lives.