Towards an Idealist Social Ontology—Criticisms and Challenges

Chapter 2 Towards an Idealist Social Ontology—Criticisms and Challenges

In line with the concluding remarks and questions in chapter one, chapter two aims to delineate the idealist approach most suitable for tackling the problem of social ontology. The first section reveals approaches that do not intrinsically build on philosophies of classical German idealism as introduced by Kant and developed further by German idealists like Fichte, Hegel, and the neo- Kantians. The second section elaborates on recognition theory as the most prominent position adopted by those trying to rejuvenate German idealism, in particular Hegel’s philosophy. Moreover, recognition theory attempts to trans- form the concept of recognition into a new paradigm of philosophy. In the course of this intriguing attempt, it becomes apparent that essential and still relevant features of German idealist philosophy are abandoned, as sections three and four will further specify. Therefore, the subsequent sections five, six, and seven will set out challenges to an alternative appropriation of classical German idealism for developing an up-to-date social ontology.

1 Beyond Naturalism, Collective Intentionality, and Phenomenology

Contemporary social ontology takes as its starting point the question of whether, and if so under what conditions, social objects are exempted from being reduced to natural objects. Instead of naturalizing social objects, such objects can be shown to possess properties and structures which are not reduc- ible to nature. As a consequence, the social sciences differ from the natural sciences in respect to their objects. With this starting point, contemporary social ontology grasps and articulates an issue, within the context of analytical philosophy and its methodology, which has been dealt with since the rise of the social sciences at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. Although scattered remarks by Wilfrid Sellars in the sixties and seventies on ‘shared intentions’1 stimulated some authors to elaborate on this subject

1 Cf. W. Sellars, ‘Imperatives, Intentions, and the Logic of “Ought” ’, in H.-N. Castañeda and G. Nakhnikian (eds.), Morality and the Language of Conduct (Detroit: Wayne State University

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi ��.��63/9789004302914_004 36 Chapter 2 matter, it was especially the suggestion of John Searle to lay the foundations of social ontology in the concept of ‘collective intentionality’ that initiated a lively and ongoing world-wide debate on the basic characteristics of sociality.2 Searle’s naturalistic stance concerning normativity in general and social normativity in particular, however, leads to a philosophical approach for deter- mining and justifying the subject matter at stake that differs radically from an idealist approach.3 Whereas Searle’s naturalism is related to philosophical realism, for an idealist ontology, the ‘idea’, ‘reason’, ‘thought’, the ‘subject’ (in the sense of idealism) makes up the foundation of reality (in the sense of realism); hence, idealism is held to obtain the foundation of any possible naturalistic approach.4 This, of course, is another way of saying that from the perspective of idealism, social ontologies following naturalist and realist conceptions of

Press, 1963), pp. 159–218; W. Sellars, Science and Metaphysics: Variations on Kantian Themes (London, New York: Routledge & Paul; Humanities Press, 1968); W. Sellars, Essays in Philosophy and its History (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1974); W. Sellars, ‘On Reasoning about Values’, American Philosophical Quarterly 17 (1980), 81–101. 2 Cf. J. R. Searle, ‘Collective Intentions and Actions’, in P. R. Cohen, J. L. Morgan and M. E. Pollack (eds.), Intentions in Communication (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1990), pp. 401– 15; J. R. Searle, The Construction of Social Reality (London et al.: Lane, 1995); J. R. Searle, Making the Social World: The Structure of Human Civilization (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2010); M. Gilbert, On Social Facts (London, New York: Routledge, 1989); Meggle G. (ed.), Social Facts & Collective Intentionality (Frankfurt/M. et al.: Hänsel-Hohenhausen, 2002); H. B. Schmid, Wir-Intentionalität: Kritik des ontologischen Individualismus und Rekonstruktion der Gemeinschaft (Freiburg: Alber, 2005); H. B. Schmid, K. Schulte-Ostermann and N. Psarros (eds.), Concepts of Sharedness: Essays on Collective Intentionality (Frankfurt: Ontos, 2008); R. Tuomela and K. Miller, ‘We-Intentions’, Philosophical Studies 53 (1988), 367–89; R. Tuomela, The Importance of Us: A Philosophical Study of Basic Social Notions (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1995); R. Tuomela, ‘Joint Intention and Commitment’, in G. Meggle (ed.), Social Facts & Collective Intentionality (Frankfurt/M. et al.: Hänsel-Hohenhausen, 2002), pp. 385–418. 3 See on the naturalistic stance and its problems more in detail C. Krijnen, ‘Das philosophische Problem ethischer Grundlagen und das Grundproblem der evolutionären Ethik’, Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 53 (1999), 77–100; C. Krijnen, Nachmetaphysischer Sinn: Eine problemgeschichtliche und systematische Studie zu den Prinzipien der Wertphilosophie Heinrich Rickerts (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2001). 4 The literature on the question ‘realism or idealism?’ is extensive. See, for instance, C. Krijnen, ‘Realism and the Validity Problem of Knowledge’, in C. Krijnen and B. Kee (eds.), Philosophy of Economics and Management & Organization Studies: A Critical Introduction (Deventer: Kluwer, 2009), pp. 237–64; C. Krijnen, ‘On Idealist Foundations of Reality: The Forgotten Perspectives of Neo-Kantianism’, in H. de Regt and K. Chunglin (eds.), Building Bridges: Connecting Science, Technology and Philosophy. Essays Presented to Hans Radder (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 2014), pp. 189–201.