This paper discusses Stephen Turner’s recent critique of theories of social practices. It shows that his arguments are valid against common explanatory uses of these concepts, but not against practices in general. There are plenty of legitimate non-explanatory uses for practice concepts. The paper also suggests that Turner’s main arguments derive from two principles that have much wider application than practice theories. Consequently, they should be considered as general constraints on every social theory.

The existence of a social world raises both the metaphysical puzzle: how can there be a “reality” of facts and objects that are genuinely created by human intentionality? and the epistemological puzzle: how can such a product of human intentionality include objective facts available for investigation and discovery by the social sciences? I argue that Searle’s story about the creation of social facts in The Construction of Social Reality is too narrow to fully solve either side of the puzzle. By acknowledging different forms of rules for constructing social reality paralleling rules for creating ‘make-believe’ truths, we can build a more comprehensive social ontology and allow for a more appropriate range of discovery for the social sciences. Nonetheless, I argue that despite the parallels between methods for constructing make-believe and social facts, it would be mistaken to treat talk about social reality as involving a mere pretense to refer.

It is a commonplace that social facts are objective in the sense that we cannot change them at will. A further platitude is that in another sense social facts are not objective, since they are fundamentally dependent on human practices. This paper presents a conceptual framework for analysing these seemingly contradictory intuitions. I argue that although John Searle’s distinction between epistemic and ontological objectivity takes us in the right direction, Searle’s discussion is nonetheless insufficient for explaining what it is in the nature of social facts that gives rise to the opposing intuitions. I argue that a Durkheimian account, especially as developed by Uskali Mäki, can fare better. Finally, I show how the Durkheimian account serves as the conceptual basis for distinguishing between methodological individualism and different forms of methodological holism.

Rejectionists argue that collective belief ascriptions are best understood as instances of collective acceptance rather than belief. Margaret Gilbert objects to rejectionist accounts of collective belief statements. She argues that rejectionists rely on a questionable methodology when they inquire into the nature of collective belief ascriptions, and make an erroneous inference when they are led to believe that collectives do not really have beliefs. Consequently, Gilbert claims that collective belief statements are best understood as instances of belief. I critically examine Gilbert’s criticisms of rejectionism. I argue that rejectionism is still a viable account of collective belief ascriptions. I also argue that Gilbert’s most powerful criticism provides important insight into what really stands between her and the rejectionists. Gilbert and the rejectionists do not yet agree about what background assumptions can be made in developing an account of collective belief ascriptions.

Margaret Gilbert has defended the view that there is such a thing as genuine collective belief, in contrast to mere collective acceptance. I argue that even if she is right, we need to distinguish two modes of collective belief. On one, a group’s believing something as a body is a matter of its relating to a proposition, as a body, in the same way that an individual who has formed a belief on some matter relates to the proposition believed. On the other, a group’s believing something as a body is a matter of its relating to a proposition, as a body, in the same way that in individual who is forming a belief on some matter relates to the proposition believed.

The analysis is a reflection of Alston’s contention (in response to Putnam’s conceptual relativity) that much of what we assert or believe carries no real ontological commitment. I place these remarks in the context of the social sciences, and attempt to show for the special sciences the condition holds true. The major reason for this is that our notions of “collective intentionality” (Searle) or “weakly conceiver-independent” (Moser) reality depends on the successful blocking of a regress problem. Because this problem has not been sufficiently addressed, what passes as an ontological commitment is in effect a clever semantic equivalence.

There is a small, but growing, number of philosophers who acknowledge the existence of plural subjects – collective agents that act in the world and are the appropriate subject of intentional state ascriptions. Among those who believe in collective agency, there are some who wish to limit the types of intentional state ascriptions that can be made to collectives. According to rejectionists, although groups can accept propositions, they cannot believe them. In this paper I argue that, given the centrality of belief and the similarities between individual belief and collective attitudes, we ought to reject rejectionism. If one believes in collective agency, one must also believe in collective belief.

Margaret Gilbert has recently argued in ProtoSociology against what she called my rejectionist’s view according to which (i) we have to make a distinction between the intentional states of believing and accepting and (ii) genuine group beliefs, i.e. group beliefs that cannot be reduced to the beliefs of the individual members of a group, should be understood in terms of the acceptance of a view rather than of beliefs proper. In this reply I discuss Gilbert’s objections.

Knowledge in a Social World (KSW) is Alvin Goldman’s sustained treatment of social epistemology. As in his previous, ‘individualistic’ epistemology, Goldman’s lodestar is the idea that it is the truth-aptness of certain processes/methods which marks them out for our epistemic approval. Here, I focus on issues concerning the framework of KSW: Goldman’s claim that a correspondence theory of truth is favoured/required by his veritistic social epistemology (VSE); and the issue of whether a VSE of the sort Goldman elaborates and defends shouldn’t be (not replaced but) supplemented by more procedural or ‘justification-centred’ considerations.

The paper tries first to show that P. Strawson’s and J. Searle’s proposal of explicating the illocutionary meaning of speech-acts (or corresponding explicit sentences) in terms of the conditions of fulfilment or satisfaction (with regard to the underlying intentional states of mind) is unsatisfactory. It provides no full understanding of the meaning of speech-acts, at least not of non-constative acts, as e.g. orders, requests, demands, confessions, promisses, etc.; for, through its quasi-verificationist horizon, it provides no unterstanding of the illocutionary force in terms of the conditions of accepting the validity-claims that are connected with the performance of the act. Thus far the paper complies with Habermas’ approach. There remains however an ambiguity with regard to the good reasons for accepting a speech-act, since on the level of life-world communication and interaction not only validity-claims and pertinent arguments but also threats and offers are functioning as socially binding illocutionary forces (thus e.g. not only in coercions like "hands up" but in all kinds of negotiations and bargainings). How is it possible to show by a cogent argument that openly strategical acts as offers and threats cannot fulfill the role of providing good reasons for accepting speech-acts in the sense of unrestricted Verständigung (i.e. communicative understanding and coming to agreement) but are parasitic upon non-strategical ways of consensual communication by understanding and accepting validity-claims?The paper argues that this suggestive contention cannot be proved, i.e. grounded by a descriptive analysis of the normal function of communicative actions in the life-world but only - indeed - by transcendental pragmatic reflection on the normative conditions of argumentative discourse which cannot be denied without committing a performative self-contradiction.

This paper takes up again Grice’s Basic Model (GBM) for analysing communicative acts. We draw attention to a ’new’ fault in GBM, i.e. a fault not yet noticed in the literature: Grice’s deflniens for CA (= communicative attempt) is not only too weak (as it is not satisfying the reflexivity-condition according to which any CA implies the speaker’s intention of CA’s being understood by the hearer); it is also too strong - and just for the same reason.

The domain of pragmatics is to arrange in the architectonic of competences. Competences are to discriminate on the base of distinction between rule-following behaviour and action-rules. This can be understood as a critic of L. Wittgensteins conception of following a rule. The Frankfurter version of speechacttheory has argued - following partial K Bühler - that three fundamental properties (functions) of language can be identified: the representation of state of affaires, the generation of interpersonal relationship and the expression of intentional make happen someone (Erlebnisse). Further dimensions and explications for concerning this properties shall be elaborated. Steps to constructive pragmatics can be gone.

How operates communication with pictures? S. Kjörup has elaborated - follow up the analysis of pictorial symbolization in N. Goodman’s "languages of art" - a speechacttheory of picturing The problem of this approach is that Kjörup has no answer of pictorial fiction.

The relationship between reflection and language has become of main interest, not only in the area of philosophy. How is reflection by means of language on language possible?Firstly I want to discuss the possibility of linguistic reflexivity within the late philosophy of L. Wittgenstein.The next step will be a critical analysis of G. Frey's "linguistic theory of reflection". This will be followed by an outline of the importance of reflection in context of the speechacttheory (J.L. Austin, J.R. Searle).Finally I will analyse the problems around linguistic reflexivity within a discourse theoretical framework (J. Habermas, K-O. Apel).It will be questioned if the "discourse" would have to be understood as the linguistic equivalent to "reflection" . Then I will be looking at the relationship between discourse and metacommunication. The analysis will end in the attempt of a typology of discoursive-reflexive predicats.

Semantic implicatures are features for understanding the use of sentences. The status of this implementations of meaning is a quasi-logical relation as a "weak implication". They are determinated through types of lexical units and expressions in grammatical positions. But both are only necessary conditions for semantic implicatures. Further assumption for meaningful use of sentences are presupposed e.g. existence presuppositions, evidences, customs etc. So, the delimination to pragmatic (presuppositions) is indicated.

In their book 'Foundation of illocutionary logic' the authors attempt to formalize the theory of speech acts. In set theoretical terms they describe their basic notions of illocutionary forces and points, define new ’illocutionary' symbols and operations and formulate some axioms and postulates, which should explicitly describe their theory, but their creativity of introducing new functional symbols and connectives conjoint with an unsystematic representation opposes this purpose.

This essay is on the concept of global democracy. We discuss the historical development of the concept of democracy and the material bases for the possible emergence of a democratic and collectively rational global commonwealth in the future. We confront the problem of contested meanings of democracy, the roots of the modern concept in the European Enlightenment, the problem of Eurocentrism in the formulation of a global philosophy of democracy, the relationship between capitalist globalization and antisystemic movements and the need for globalization from below.

Much has been made of the centrality of comparison to sociological research. The world-systems perspective, however, posits a single unit of analysis that challenges the possibility of designating the independent cases demanded by the formal logic of comparative analysis. The present work suggests an alternative to comparisons of multiple cases in the form of analogies among instances of processes. The consequences of such a methodological shift are explored through the example of the contemporary “War on Terror”.