Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2000 07:41:42 -0800 From: Eduardo Mendieta <mendietae-AT-usfca.edu> Subject: HAB: What are institutions? Now might be a good time to send in a question I have had on my mind for a while. In his essay, 'Comments on John Searle: "Meaning communication, and representation'" (in Searle and his critics, pp. 17-29; the essay is reprinted in the volume edited by M. Cooke), Habermas asserts (in the context of a critique of Searle's account of performatives) that "Language, however, is an institution only in a metaphorical sense" (p. 28). In Searle and his critics (pp. 89-96) Searle responds to Habermas (the reply is not mentioned in the Habermas volume). (I find the response persuasive on a number of points.) Specifically, however, here is Searle's reply on the matter of institutions: "Finally, when he says in objecting to my account of performatives, that language is not a human institution, I really cannot imagine why he or anyone else would say that. On just about any definition of 'institution,' language is a paradigm, perhaps the paradigm of a human institution. If he wants to deny this, surely the onus is on him to provide an argument." (p. 96). I think Searle exaggerates the strength of his own position here, but basically I agree that language is a paradigm of human institutions (in other words, I mostly accept Searle's naturalistic account of institutions given in Construction of Social Reality). My question--questions, really--are these: Why does Habermas think language is not literally a human institution? What is Habermas's definition or his paradigm of a human institution? What accounts of human institutions actually support Searle's position? Is Habermas's position distinctively his, or are there accounts of institutions that agree with him (which Searle should acknowledge)? Bill Hord Houston, TX, USA --- from list habermas-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- --- from list habermas-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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