I think that John Searle’s most interesting philosophical contribution is his distinction between ontological and epistemic subjectivity. This distinction is not the most colorful of Searle’s contributions, and it is certainly not the most philosophically original. (I’m not an expert on metaphysics and epistemology, but I strongly suspect that philosophers in those fields have drawn similar distinctions in the past.) However, it is a distinction that informs much of Searle’s other theorizing, for better or worse. Here I want to introduce a refinement into the distinction and show how the absence of this refinement introduces a problematic ambiguity into Searle’s theorizing.
1. Two kinds of ontological subjectivity
For Searle, ontological subjectivity is a property of entities, whereas epistemic subjectivity is a property of claims (2002, 22-23). A claim is epistemically subjective if and only if its truth or falsity depends on the attitudes, feelings or preferences of subjects (2002, 22). For example, the claim “Asparagus is tasty” is epistemically subjective, because its truth or falsity is relative to people’s tastes. In contrast, X is ontologically subjective if and only if X has a certain “mode of existence” (2002, 23) such that X exists "only as experienced by human or animal subjects" (2010, 18).
Unfortunately, there is an ambiguity in Searle’s definition of ontological subjectivity. For there are at least two ways in which something can be an object of experience. We say that we “experience” the roundness of a globe when we touch it, and we also say that we “experience” pain. But there is a crucial difference here. The roundness is a property of the globe; it exists outside our minds. We “experience” the roundness in the sense that, when we touch the globe, we form a mental state that is “of” or “about” the roundness. In contrast, the pain is not extra-mental: rather, the pain is itself a mental state. We “experience” the pain in the sense that the pain is itself an experience. Thus, there are at least two kinds of objects of experience: (1) extra-mental entities and (2) mental states. (Note: Here I am using “mental” to refer to conscious mental states, not to those states that are sometimes called "unconscious mental states".)
Searle sees mental states as a clear case of ontological subjectivity: “All conscious states are ontologically subjective, because they have to be experienced by a human or animal subject in order to exist” (2002, 23). In fact, one might be tempted to think that the distinction between ontological subjectivity and ontological objectivity is the distinction between the mental and the extra-mental.
But there is a problem here. As we have seen, extra-mental entities can also be objects of experience. And there may be a sense in which some extra-mental entities exist "only as experienced by human or animal subjects". Consider the property of tastiness. To someone who likes asparagus, asparagus is tasty; to someone who dislikes asparagus, asparagus is not tasty. Since asparagus is an extra-mental entity, its properties are presumably extra-mental as well. So it seems that an extra-mental property—namely the tastiness of asparagus—exists only relative to those who experience it; to those who don’t experience it, the tastiness doesn’t exist. Thus, the tastiness of asparagus would seem to be extra-mental and yet ontologically subjective.
Now, some philosophers might claim that the tastiness of asparagus is actually a mental state of people who like asparagus. I find such a claim somewhat perverse, since we predicate tastiness of asparagus, not of people who like asparagus: we say “Asparagus is tasty”. Of course, one could always be an error theorist with regard to tastiness: one could claim that there is no such property as tastiness, that there is only the asparagus and the gustatory pleasure in the mind of the person who likes asparagus. However, unless one wishes to take that approach, I think that one must admit that tastiness is extra-mental and yet ontologically subjective. It is an extra-mental property, yet it exists only relative to observers. We can express this situation by saying that tastiness is observer-relative.
So there are two ways in which an entity can be ontologically subjective. On one hand, an entity can be ontologically subjective by being mental. On the other hand, an entity can be ontologically subjective by being observer-relative. Thus, I propose that we replace Searle’s twofold distinction between epistemically subjective and ontologically subjective with a threefold distinction: epistemically subjective, mental, and observer-relative. Searle does have the concept of being observer-relativity. However, he expresses the connection between observer-relativity and ontological subjectivity with the unfortunately vague remark that “all observer-relative phenomena contain an element of ontological subjectivity” (Searle 2001, 55). I think it would be better to simply replace the category of ontologically subjective with the two distinct categories of mental and observer-relative.
2. Ambiguities and solutions
Searle’s failure to distinguish between the two kinds of ontological subjectivity results in some major ambiguities in his theorizing. For example, the central claim in Searle’s “social ontology” is that social phenomena such as social status are ontologically subjective but epistemically objective. This claim is ambiguous, because it does not distinguish between the two ways of being ontologically subjective—being mental and being observer-relative. Social status is clearly observer-relative: Barack Obama is the U.S. president only because he is recognized as such; if everyone somehow forgot about the institution of the U.S. presidency, then Obama would no longer be president. (This does not change the fact that social status is epistemically objective: since people do in fact recognize Obama as the U.S. president, the claim “Barack Obama is currently the U.S. President” is objectively true.) However, social status is not ontologically subjective in the sense of mental. Social status is observer-relative, so it depends on the mental states of observers. But a social status is not itself a mental state. The status of U.S. president is an extra-mental property belonging to Obama, albeit an observer-relative one.
This ambiguity—i.e. in the claim that social status is ontologically subjective—allows Searle to get away with a further ambiguity when he seeks to elaborate upon the ontological status of social phenomena. He writes that “status functions” (roughly speaking, social statuses) are “partly constituted by thoughts” (1995). This claim is ambiguous, because “constituted by” could mean either of two things: it might mean “made out of”, or it might mean “created by”. Once we recognize that social statuses are extra-mental and yet observer-relative, the ambiguity vanishes: as an extra-mental entity, Barack Obama’s status of U.S. president cannot be composed of thoughts; however, it is created by thoughts, because it exists only relative to society’s collective belief that Obama is the U.S. president.
Here’s another ambiguity in Searle’s theorizing that could be removed by distinguishing between the two kinds of ontological subjectivity. According to Searle’s theory of “biological naturalism”, mental states are biological properties, yet they have a special “first-person ontology”, such that they “exist only as experienced by a human or animal subject” (2004, 135). Now, this is all rather ambiguous. What does Searle mean when he says that a mental state exists “only as experienced” by a subject? Is Searle saying that my mental state of pleasure exists only from my perspective—that the statement “Joseph Dowd is currently feeling pleasure” is true only for me and not absolutely? This is one possible way of interpreting Searle’s description of “first-person ontology”, and it may even be what Searle himself thinks. Yet I believe that this view of mental states is deeply confused. The statement “Joseph Dowd is currently feeling pleasure” is not true only for me. If it is true at all, then it is simply true, period. Of course, others may not be able to know for certain whether I am feeling pleasure, but that’s irrelevant. Either I’m feeling pleasure or I’m not.
Once we distinguish between the two kinds of ontological subjectivity, the potential for confusion vanishes. Mental states do have a special ontology in the sense that they are mental, in the sense that they are themselves experiences (as opposed to external objects, which can only be experienced). However, unlike tastiness or social status, mental states are not observer-relative. Whether I am currently experiencing pleasure is not up to any observer: either I am experiencing pleasure or I am not. Mental states are ontologically subjective in the sense of being mental, but not in the sense of being observer-relative.
3. References:
Searle, John. 2002. Consciousness and Language. Cambridge UP.
Searle, John. 2010. Making the Social World. Oxford UP.
Searle, John. 2004. Mind: A Brief Introduction. Oxford UP.
Searle, John. 2001. Rationality in Action. MIT Press.
Searle, John. 1997. The Construction of Social Reality. Simon & Schuster.
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