Venables, J. 2013. Hacia una ontología de la realidad social desde la filosofía de John Searle. Cinta moebio 48: 115-135

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Towards an ontology of social reality based on John Searle’s philosophy

Mg. Juan Pablo Venables (jpvenables@yahoo.es) Instituto de Historia y Ciencias Sociales, Universidad Austral de Chile (Valdivia, Chile)

Abstract

This paper critically reviews the principal elements of Searle’s proposed social ontology which is scattered in different books and papers. It discusses the philosophical and conceptual affinities between his philosophy of social reality and sociological theory, and proposes some solutions to dilemmas arising from the strong mentalism of his proposal, using tools from classical sociological theory and the sociology of knowledge. The main objective is to help lay the foundation for a comprehensive social ontology, whose structure is supported by the complementarity between the proposed Searle's social ontology and sociological theory.

Key words: ontology of social reality, collective intentionality, institutional facts, language, mind.