Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2000 10:08:22 -0600
From: Bill Hord <hord_b-AT-hccs.cc.tx.us>
Subject: Re: HAB: Re: What are institutions?


Gary, there are many interesting points in your posts on this question,
and I would like to respond to many of them.  I have begun to think
through some of my responses (I find your comments on constitution, for
instance, very interesting), but I go slower than many.

Here I want to reply only to your suggestion that Searle and I are
avoiding the real issue by focusing on the question of institutions.  At
the beginning of his essay Habermas writes that "we think we know what
it takes to perform a successful speech act" (1991, p. 17).  His essay
promises to look at two views of what it takes.  

Briefly, Searle's view includes intentionality (ala Grice) and
institutions (he includes language as one of those institutions).  He is
clearly following along the path marked by Austin in these respects.

Habermas's view does not include intentionality.  It may include
institutions, but they are not necessary for all speech acts, in his
view (some statements, for example).  In this respect it would help if
we knew what Habermas's idea of an institution is.  (Two likely
exemplars are norms and law.)

But, you might object, this is to construe Habermas's position in terms
of Searle's.  And yet Habermas has invited this to some extent by taking
on the label 'speech acts' (Searle's coinage?), which, in H's own words,
is an area Searle has done the most to develop.  Certainly Searle's
account of speech acts is the most clearly stated (H acknowledges this
as well).

To be clear, I think it has been much too little noticed just how far
Habermas's theory of speech acts diverges from those of Austin and
Searle (granting Austin's activities the status of a theory).

And, I've probably gone too far in suggesting side issues.  The key
issue, for me is the importance of the concept and role of
institutions.  Habermas is not qualifying language as a metaphorical
institution, as if this gives it a special status (he believes language
has a special status, but that is not the point of his utterance).  His
point is to dismiss the role of institutions in speech acts because he
thinks an adequate account of speech acts does not require an account of
institutions, because institutions are inessential to performing speech
acts.  (In your terms, because he may think institutions are constituted
by speech acts.  By the way, I think they are, in many cases.  More
often--always, in fact--human institutions are articulated by speech
acts.  Many institutions, such as family, behavioral norms, languages,
dominance hierarchies, etc., emerge prelinguistically.  Others, such as
the US Electoral College, or the Habermas listserv, are constituted by
linguistic action--among other things.)

Searle's paradigm speech act--a promise (a declarative in H's terms, but
not a statement--depends on the institution of promising as well as the
institution of speaking English (e.g.).

The latter fact is important.  How does Habermas account for the fact
that by making certain sounds he makes a promise, creating a real
obligation for himself?  Both he and Searle recognize that it takes more
than that, of course.  What?  To say that his claim to be promising is
valid if he is in a position (is authorized by a norm) to promise
doesn't get us very far.  Presumably the norm is void without the
linguistic apparatus to put it into play.  Habermas admits that his
theory is more complex and vague than Searle's.  Mysterious would be
another good description.

On the most pragmatic level, until H can take a lot of the mystery out
of his account, it can do very little real work.  One area that could be
much clearer is the relationship of speech acts to human institutions
(and social practices more generally).  

I fear I've only created more confusion ...

Bill


Gary D wrote:
> 
> Bill:
> 
> Back to your posting, more specifically....
> 
> You write that 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." Yet, JHs comment
> here--almost an aside (at the end of his essay)--is a counterpoint (a
> however) within a specific context, and this context can be helpful
> for assessing Searles response to JHs point (a point which is not
> basically the comment you quote), which Searle apparently misses (as
> Ill indicate below).
> 
> I dont have Searles full response at hand, but what you quote
> provides enough useful material for clarifying *Habermas* point
> (which Searle seems to miss).
> 
> "Finally, writes Searle, when [JH] 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."
> 
> In fact, though, JH *does* say that language is an institution, in a
> metaphorical sense, relative to more basic kinds of points about the
> status of Searles paradigmatic speech act (a context which is
> deferred by Searle or you, Bill, by focusing on the supplementary
> point that language may or may not be an institution).
> 
> Anyway, you do basically...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).
> 
> Yet whether or not language is paradigmatically an institution is a
> different matter from whether or not a naturalistic account of
> institutions is tenable (the burden seems to lie on the Searlean,
> since our ordinarily historical approach to things cultural--and all
> institutions are--makes naturalistic accounts prima facie
> implausible). It appears to me that Searles discussion of language
> in _Construction of Social Reality_ is based on the *linguistic
> relativity* of any sense (any meaning, sensicality), rather than
> based on his account of institutions. *Because* of the linguistic
> relativity of any institution and the dependence of language upon
> lanuage (as Searle puts it), language looks like a metainstitution of
> all institutions, regardless of any naturalism of institutions
> (maybe, though, due to a naturalism of language, since Searle rather
> easily ontologizes the ordinary sense of consciousness, which can
> only have sense, according to Searle, by grace of language).
> 
> My question--questions, really--are these, you write: Why does
> Habermas think language is not literally a human institution?
> 
> Because language is more constitutional than institutional, and all
> institutions or all instituting depends upon prior constitution or
> constituting. JH would agree, I believe, that constitution is the
> existential-historical condition for the possibility of
> institutionality, and much of linguistic meaning is not
> institutional, as in most cases of subjective and objective reference
> and many cases of intersubjective, not-yet-normative understanding.
> But the only way to satisfactorily address this question is
> clinically: What makes you think language IS basically
> institutional? Searles declarations? Which ones? Which arguments? It
> looks to me that Searle is arguing loosely, if not merely letting
> readers know what he believes (with not much effort at argument at
> all), in _CSR_. Indeed, he writes like he talks and lectures: full of
> himself.
> 
> What is Habermas's definition or his paradigm of a human
> institution? The value of validity--there being validity (be it
> factual, normative or experiential)--might qualify as a paradigmatic
> human institution. But exemplar would be a better qualifier. So its
> not a matter of definition or...paradigm, as if these are
> interchangeable. Or maybe they can be interchangeable: The paradigm
> is the definition, which happens to be a multiple of exemplary
> meanings. It you look at a standard definition of institution, its
> not surprising at all. But it is quite easy to see that language
> might not be what one normally defines institution to mean,
> contrary to Searles feigned (willful) confusion about *why* JH
> doesnt acknowledge Searles oh so simple point.
> 
> In fact, to call language a paradigm of a significant practice,
> relationship, or organization in a society or culture is a rather
> simple category error, confusing (1) what language provides to action
> (through practices, in relationships, and for a society or culture)
> along with other provisions and (2) what language itself is (as means
> that may work constitutively or mediately). Language itself is not a
> practice; practices may be linguistic or they may be non-linguistic.
> Language itself is not relationship; relationships may be linguistic
> or may be non-linguistic, and meaning may be relational, disclosive
> or expressive. And language is not itself organization; things may be
> linguistically organized or not; organizations, organisms, organons
> may be lingustic or not.
> 
> So, why cant Searle imagine why anyone would deny that language is
> institutionality? First of all, if one goes to JHs text, one sees
> that Searle is not attending to JHs point (in Bills quotation, at
> least). One sees that JH is making a point about Searles concealment
> of the validity basis of speech, which Searle does in terms of a
> necessary institutionality of background linguisticality; in my view,
> Searle is collapsing a nexus of worldness into less
> (institutionality) than it manifestly is (constitution,
> individuation, institution, representation, fabrication....). What
> Searle cant imagine is that his necessary institutionality is really
> a cognitivity of world relations, which *includes* institutional
> elements, structures, processes, practices, etc., in its background
> assumptive form world or lifeworld, but congealment of all that as
> institutionality is a misunderstanding of the Background (Im
> extrapolating from what JH breifly says, but this is fair to whats
> going on, I think).
> 
> JH: Searle...interprets the performative character of all classes of
> illocutionary acts in light of the illocutionary force of
> declarations, which are clearly associable with institutionalized
> (or -izable) enactments. JH then explicates the problem of
> assimilating all performative force to declaratives, such that the
> distinct force of a declarative as such disappears in a
> declarativeness of language as such (while other distinct
> performative forces are, in effect, basically annuled), as if (in
> Habermasian terms( distinct domains of validity derive from a
> primordial Validity of language itself, which also happens to be one
> of the distinct domains of validity. If, nonetheless, his analysis
> leads Searle to refer to some declarative force inherent in speech
> itself, the intuition behind this peculiar force might well match
> what I prefer to call the rationally motivating force of validity
> claims that are in need of intersubjective recognition. But one
> wouldnt want to assimilate rationally motivating force to the notion
> of validity itself, as this would dissolve the difference between
> rational *action* and *background* of rational action, assimilating
> the communicative establishment of validity to a univocal declaration
> of validity. However, Searle in effect does. Searle elucidates the
> intrinsically linguistic force of the very act of raising a validity
> claim through the force of an institution that enables a speaker, via
> his social roles, literally to call something into existence. In
> order to turn the elucidation into an explanation, Searle has to
> assimilate language to institutions, perhaps as if assimilating
> understanding to knowledge. Language, however, is an institution
> only in a metaphorical sense, since constitution, representation,
> individuation, fabrication, etc., cant be assimilated into
> institution. Thus Searles explanation of how performatives work
> reaches no further than this metaphor, perhaps as the explanation of
> one kind of validity may model the notion of the validity basis of
> speech or phenomenological certainty (avowal, the claim of
> genuineness) suggests the character of knowing, albeit
> metaphorically.
> 
> Lights out,
> 
> Gary
> 
> --- Bill Hord <hord_b-AT-hccs.cc.tx.us> wrote:
> > 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 ---
> 
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