¿Son los hechos sociales una clase de hechos mentales?

Una crítica materialista a la ontología social de John R. Searle

Abstract

This article carries out a critical analysis of some aspects of John R. Searle’s work The
Construction of Social Reality (1995). Starling out from agreement with Searle on the need to
abandon the so-called «social constructionism», an appraisal is made of the extent to which the
author’s argument is successful in this endeavour. In this regard, the following theses are defended:
1) Searle’s social ontology is partially weighed down by inappropriate mentalism, in other
words, by the reduction of all social facts to mental facts or representations superimposed
on «rough» facts. 2) Searle’s mentalism does not take him sufficiently far away from social
constructionists, but in spite of himself his coherent development ends up having constructionist
and idealistic consequences. 3) In order to overcome these limitations, it should be demonstrated
that there are social facts that are not rough facts, or mental facts, or simple combinations of
both; it shall be maintained that an analytically reconstructed concept of praxis can be a good
point of departure for developing this strategy, which may be a step in the construction of a
materialistic social ontology.