Philosophy of the Social

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"Counting As" a Bridge Principle: Against Searle Against

Social-Scientific Laws
William Butchard and Robert D'Amico
Philosophy of the Social Sciences published online 8 September 2010
DOI: 10.1177/0048393110379859

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379859 POS

Philosophy of the Social Sciences OnlineFirst, published on September 8, 2010 as

doi:10.1177/0048393110379859

Philosophy of the Social Sciences

Counting As a XX(X) 115

The Author(s) 2010
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DOI: 10.1177/0048393110379859
Against Searle http://pos.sagepub.com

Against Social-
Scientific Laws

William Butchard1 and Robert DAmico1

Abstract
John Searles argument that social-scientific laws are impossible depends on
a special open-ended feature of social kinds. We demonstrate that under a
noncontentious understanding of bridging principles the so-called counts-
as relation, found in the expression X counts as Y in (context) C, pro-
vides a bridging principle for social kinds. If we are correct, not only are
social-scientific laws possible, but the counts as relation might provide a
more perspicuous formulation for candidate bridge principles.

Keywords
searle, social-scientific laws, social kinds, bridge principles, in virtue of

Searles argument (Searle 1984) against even the possibility of social-scien-

tific laws is not against the entire range of laws in the so-called special sci-
ences since, unlike Donald Davidson (Davidson 1980), Searle allows for the
possibility of psychophysical laws. Nevertheless, Searle is more ambitious

1
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

Corresponding Author:
Robert DAmico, University of Florida, Department of Philosophy, 330 Griffin-Floyd Hall,
Gainesville, FL 32611, USA
Email: rdamico@ufl.edu

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2 Philosophy of the Social Sciences XX(X)

than Jerry Fodor (Fodor 1974) since Searle claims social-scientific laws are
impossible, not just empirically unlikely. Instead of Davidsons elusive argu-
ment that the intentional finds no echo in the physical, Searle offers a more
straightforward argument that a feature specific to social kinds, self-referen-
tiality, makes it the case that social-scientific laws are impossible.
Our criticism of Searles impossibility argument will not require challeng-
ing his characterization of social kinds, even though that account (including
his claim that collective intentionality is irreducible) is somewhat controver-
sial. Rather we argue that Searles own reliance on what he calls the counts-as
locution within his social ontology provides a bridging principle for law-like
claims in the social sciences, including possible economic laws. Thus even
given the self-referential account of social kinds, it will not be enough to
secure Searles impossibility argument because it will not be enough to block
the possibility of bridging principles.
It is important for us to stress at the start that Searle characterizes his argu-
ment as not wedded to any contentious assumptions concerning laws, kinds,
or bridging principles.

But my argument doesnt depend on endorsing any particular theory of

scientific laws and bridge principles. If the argument is valid it should
be consistent with any sane theory of the nature of scientific laws. It
simply rests on the common-sense point that if two different sets of laws
are supposed to predict the same sets of events, and to predict them
universally, systematically, and uniformly under two independent sets
of descriptions, there has to be some systematic set of relations between
the two sets of laws. (Searle 1991, 338)

Searle, however, emphasizes that social laws must be compatible with the
laws of physics. What that means is that the social-scientific laws that predict
social events predict the same events as the laws of physics. Predicting the
same events, if it is not a matter of coincidence, requires a systematic set of
relations between the social and the physical. We take systematic to indi-
cate more than regular co-instantiation. If the connection between the social
and the physical is systematic in the relevant sense, then it is an explanatory
connection. We see this point developed in the following passage.

There would have to be some systematic explanation of the fact that on

the day of the revolution the molecules will all be blowing in exactly
the right direction in order for the revolution to take place; otherwise
it would be a miracle, a matter, for example, of divine preestablished

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Butchard and DAmico 3

harmony, that the laws of physics and the laws of revolution both pre-
dict exactly the same result, in their different vocabularies. (Searle 1991,
337, emphasis added)

The fact that the two sets of laws make the same predictions must be
because of an explanatory connection between the physical and social kinds.
For there to be laws in the social sciences in the sense in which there are
laws of physics there must be some systematic correlation between phenom-
ena identified in social and psychological terms and phenomena identified in
physical terms (Searle 1984, 81, emphasis added). Put another way, there
must be correlations between the instantiation of the social phenomena and
the instantiation of the physical phenomena, and those correlations must explain
why the two sets of laws make the same predictions.
Searle argues in the following way. If there were social-scientific laws,
then there would be bridge principles connecting social and physical phe-
nomena. If there were such bridge principles, then it would be possible to
explain the instantiation of social features in terms of the instantiation of
physical features. But there is not, even on principle, any way to explain the
instantiation of social features in terms of the instantiation of physical fea-
tures. As a result, social-scientific laws are impossible. Searles argument against
social-scientific laws, then, is based on a direct challenge to the explanatory
status of the connection between the social and the physical.
Why is there no explanatory connection between the social and the physi-
cal? Searles answer is that social phenomena are physically open-ended.
When Searle speaks of a social kind being physically open-ended he does not
mean that the disjunction of physical features that accompany that kind is
objectionable from an explanatory point of view because it is what might be
called a hodgepodge. He allows for such disjunctive bridge principles. He
says, for example, that there are such connections in the science of nutrition.

The grounding isnt simplebecause for example there is a rather

complex series of processes by which food is converted into fat depos-
its in live organisms. Nonetheless, there is still a groundinghowever
complexof this law in terms of the behaviour of more fundamental
particles. Other things being equal, when you eat a lot, the molecules
will be blowing in exactly the right direction to make you fat. (Searle
1984, 77)

This is the reason Searles argument is more ambitious than Fodors. For
Fodor such disjunctions (those that Searle calls below rough or loose

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4 Philosophy of the Social Sciences XX(X)

disjunctions) make laws in the special sciences empirically unlikely. Searle

stresses that he is not arguing on the grounds that the physical kinds that
accompany social kinds would have to be disjunctive.

My arguments are intended to hold against both smooth and rough

reductions. In fact I explicitly criticize certain views, such as those of
Jerry Fodor, which reject the idea of smooth reductions in favor of
loose disjunctions of bridge laws; and indeed I presented an example
of a loose set of bridge laws that connect principles of nutrition with
principles of physics and chemistry. (Searle 1991, 337)

Given that Searle does not object to explanations that appeal to disjunc-
tions, what does he mean when he says that social phenomena are physically
open-ended?
Searle considers social phenomena and artifacts as the imposition of func-
tions on physical objects. Thus the physical properties a screwdriver has are
not sufficient for its being a screwdriver. An object cannot be a screwdriver
unless people have the right thoughts about it. When I describe it as a screw-
driver, I am specifying a feature of the object that is observer or user relative.
It is a screwdriver only because people use it as (or made it for the purpose
of, or regard it as) a screwdriver (Searle 1995a, 10).
It is for this reason that saying what it takes to be a screwdriver requires
one to mention screwdrivers. Money has the same self-referentiality. But
there is an important distinction to make between these two examples. For an
object to be a screwdriver, it is sufficient for a single person to think of it and
use it as a screwdriver. All that is necessary for something to be a screwdriver
is for it to have the right physical properties and for it to be treated as a screw-
driver by at least one agent.
But this is not the case with money. Money is the central example of what
Searle calls a status function. It is a function a physical object can perform only
if a community collectively imposes that function on that object. As a result, as
shown in more detail below, Searle considers status functions as the key to why
bridge principles with regard to such social phenomena are impossible.
When Searle claims that money is physically open-ended, he should not
be understood as making the strong claim that absolutely anything could be
used as money. He lists some conditions on what properties something has to
have for it to be possible for a community to use it as money.

There is a scale that goes from freedom to necessity, from arbitrariness

to reason, in the items selected for the status-functions. At one extreme

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Butchard and DAmico 5

of freedom and arbitrariness is money. All sorts of substances can

serve as money; objects need only meet certain minimum conditions of
durability, handleability, transportability, noncounterfeitability, recog-
nizability, and perhaps a few others to perform the function of money.
(Searle 1995a, 86)

Given this passage, the right way to interpret no physical limits what-
ever is not in terms of the possibility of treating anything at all as money.
Rather, what it means is that when something functions as money, it does not
do so in virtue of physical features that could explain monetary regularities.
A status function requires collective intentionality. It is a function performed
only as a matter of human cooperation . . . the collective imposition of
function . . . is a crucial element in the creation of institutional facts (Searle
1995a, 39, emphasis added). And if performing the function is only a matter
of human cooperation, there are implications for how we should think about
the physical features of money.

Money cannot perform its functions in virtue of physics alone. No mat-

ter how much by way of function we try to assign to the physics, the
physics of money aloneunlike the physics of a knife or a bathtub
does not enable the performance of the function. For functions that are
not status functions, such as the functions of a bathtub or a knife, the
physics is essential to the performance of the function. The physical
structure enables me to use my bathtub as a bathtub but not as a knife,
and it enables me to use my knife as a knife but not as a bathtub. With
status functions, however, there is a break between the physics of the
system, on the one hand, and the status and the functions that go along
with the status, on the other. (Searle 1999, 126)

We think one must read enable in the above passage as indicating the
explanatory role somethings physical features can play. If some object is a
knife, then it has some intrinsic, mind-independent physical properties such
that having those properties makes it the case that an individual could use
the object as a knife but could not use it as a bathtub. This shows that it is in the
very nature of knives to have certain physical features. These features are
explanatory. They explain why, for example, a given object can be used as a
butter knife but not as a steak knife.
But in the case of moneyand all social phenomena strictly understood
matters are different. It is not the case that if an individual decides to treat
something as money, the physics will do the rest. For something to be money,

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6 Philosophy of the Social Sciences XX(X)

there has to be a community of people who collectively decide to use it as a

symbol for monetary value. Treating some object as a symbol for monetary
value is unconstrained by the laws of physics in the sense that it is not in
the very nature of a symbol for monetary value to have physical features other
than durability, handleability, etc., and these features are not of the sort that
could ever explain law-like monetary regularities.
We can see the intended force of his argument if we suppose, for illustration,
that the bridge principles would be statements of causal connections between
the physical features of money and monetary features. It indeed appears
implausible that such connections could explain law-like regularities in the
monetary domain. The categories of durability, handleability, etc. are too
broad to supply (via bridge principles) a causal explanation of monetary reg-
ularities. If the argument holds no matter what form the bridge principles
might take, then whatever physical-monetary regularities there may be could
never explain monetary regularities. As a result, the science of economics
describes mere regularities, not laws.
Given this reading, we can make clearer a passage in which Searle dis-
tances himself from Fodor.

Consider Fodors claim that social laws will have exceptions since
the phenomena at the social level map loosely or disjunctively onto
the physical phenomena. Once again this does not account for the
radical discontinuities I have been calling attention to. Even if this
sort of disjunction had been true up to a certain point, it is always
open to the next person to add to it in indefinitely many ways. (Searle
1984, 79)

Searles point is that, because of the open-ended character of social phe-

nomena, even Fodors loose form of reduction will fail. Because of the broad
character of the physical requirements on being money, we cannot hope to
discover strict regularities connecting monetary categories with physical cat-
egories that are potentially explanatory because they are narrower than han-
dleability, transportability, etc.. For this reason, we cannot hope to discover
explanatory regularities even in the form of token-event identities of the sort
Fodor puts forward as candidates for bridge principles. In another passage,
Searle draws the same conclusions.

Now, this has the consequence that there cannot be any physical fea-
ture, or even a disjunction of physical features, which all money has in

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Butchard and DAmico 7

common which would constitute the principle that enable us to connect

the laws of money with the laws of physics, and it further has the
consequence that there is no shared physical stimulus that all money
produces on our nervous system. (Searle 1991, 336)

Once again, the point is not that there is no disjunctive physical feature
that always in fact accompanies money. Of course there is some such feature.
Searles point is that money, by its nature, can have physical features of a sort
that cannot, even in principle, explain monetary regularities. And since
social-scientific laws would have to be explainable in terms of the physical
features of money, there can, in principle, be no such laws.
Having come this far, we will turn to two objections to this position. The
first objection is one Searle himself offers so as to provide a stronger
defense for his argument. The second objection will be our objection based
on some further considerations of the counts as locution with respect to
social phenomena.
The objection Searle discusses is that the systematic connection to the
physical arises not from the physical properties of the social kind itself but
from the physical properties of human brain states. Since brain states are
uncontroversially physical phenomena, we can look to them for a systematic
correlate of social phenomena.
Here is the way this sort of objection to Searle would proceed. Even if
money can have an indefinite number of physical forms, it is still true that
the thought This is money always has some neurological correlate.
Even if there is an indefinite number of thoughts about what counts as
moneyThese paper objects are money, These silver objects are
money, These gold objects are money, etc.they all have in common
the form x is money. Thus the thought that something is money may be
correlated with brain states, and this correlation constitutes a bridge prin-
ciple. The explanatory role of the physical aspect of money in this sort of
objection to Searle is thus restricted to its causal interaction with the
brain. We return to this objection and Searles response to it in our
conclusion.
Searles response begins by granting that there may be bridge principles
that make for some psychophysical laws.

We might even get to the point when we could describe the neuro-
physiological conditions for having certain sorts of visual experiences.
The experience of seeing that something is red, for instance. Nothing

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8 Philosophy of the Social Sciences XX(X)

in my account would prevent us from having such a neurophysiologi-

cal psychology. (Searle 1984, 80)

But systematic correlations between neurophysiological states and seeing

that something is money are impossible. Searles reason for this conclusion is
that we need to contrast seeing that something is red with seeing that some-
thing is money. Red objects all have something physically in common,
namely, some surface feature R. So the set of stimulus conditions for seeing
that something is red is not physically open-ended. It is plausible to say that
whenever people see that something is red, they are in some brain state B,
where B is caused by R. This condition would also hold for believing that
something is red. There is hence no in principle objection to the neuroscience
of color perception. But the set of stimulus conditions for the thought that
something is money is open-ended. If money is open-ended, then so is the set
of brain states it can cause.
There are two ways to interpret Searles response. First, he might simply
mean that it is extremely implausible to think that the members of such a
diverse hodgepodge of physical properties all cause the same brain state. But
we want to suggest a different reading. If there were social scientific laws of
phenomena such as money, it would be a miracle if they predicted the same
events as the laws of physics, unless there were bridge principles connecting
the social with the physical. This condition requires there to be something
physically common to all possible instances of money, which could constitute
a bridge principle. Of course the physical features of money have effects on
our nervous systems, so there must be a physical law to the effect that the
physical features of money cause certain brain states. However, if money is
physically open-ended, that is, if the physical features of money are too broad
in character to explain monetary regularities, then the set of possible brain
states caused by these features is open-ended as well. The brain states caused
by durability, handleability, etc. are themselves too broad in character to
explain monetary regularities.
We understand Searles reply here as introducing a form of physical non-
closure. An appeal to mental nonclosure occurs, for example, in Donald
Davidsons discussion of psychophysical laws (Davidson 1980, 223-24).
Davidson claims that there cannot be strict mental laws because the mental
domain is not closed under causation. Since mental events, on Davidsons
view, are sometimes caused by strictly physical events, it is not possible to
explain, for any mental event, how it came about in purely mental terms.
Since the physical domain is causally closed, Davidson argues that whenever
a mental event causes a physical event it is possible to describe the mental

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Butchard and DAmico 9

event in physical terms; this supplies what is needed for a complete explana-
tion of why the former physical event came about.1
In contrast, Searle is claiming that the physical realm is not a closed sys-
tem. The mental makes it the case that there is no set of brain states that can
stand in systematic connections to mental states. It does so by treating certain
classes of objects as money, for instance, and then these classes causally
interact with the brain. As he puts it: Paradoxically, the way that the mental
infects the physical prevents there ever being a strict science of the mental
(Searle 1984, 81).
Before turning to our objection we want to stress why Searles claim
leaves a considerable mystery. For Searle psychophysical laws are possible,
but what we might call socio-psychophysical laws are impossible. In other
words, correlations in such domains as economics are all in effect brute mat-
ters of fact. Searle briefly suggests how economics could be redescribed as the
study of applied or practical intentionality.2 We take this suggestion as treat-
ing putative economic laws as heteronomic generalizations. They are no more
than rough and ready generalizations of folk wisdom, as we might put it, and
not completeable or refineable without changing vocabularies. It is important
to stress that this point is not about economic laws, for instance, turning out
to be statistical laws. Statistical laws are not universally quantified of course,
but they can be refined or completed without change of vocabulary. In con-
trast, mere generalizations are not strictly laws and that is why we treat them
as immune to counter-examples.
We have no special argument that economic laws will prove themselves in
the long run. But they give every appearance of supporting counter-factual

1
As a side point, in saying things to the effect that there must be a physical feature com-
mon to all money, Searle may be committing himself to the view that bridge principles
have to be biconditionals. Our interpretation does not commit him to such a view. We
want to note that it is not at all clear that bridge principles have to be biconditionals. It
is reasonable to think that what is needed for a bridge principle connecting the social
with the physical is sufficiency, that is, bottom-up entailment. (Richardson 1979) In the
next section we argue that a relation Searle picks out with the expression counts as
supplies a bridge principle that meets all the demands Searle places on his account of
law-likeness, assuming that he does not require bridge principles to be biconditionals.
2
Notice that the working economist can simply take intentionality for granted. . . .
And the laws of economics then state systematic fallouts or consequences of such
assumptions. . . . No, the law does not state the content of individual intentionality.
Rather, it works out the consequences of such intentionality (Searle 1984, 82-83).
(see also DAmico, 1997)

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10 Philosophy of the Social Sciences XX(X)

claims. Also, if the intentional as partly constitutive of social phenomena

escapes all systematic connection to the physical, then the ubiquitous social
regularities found in economics, for example, are mere generalizations.
Though, as we note, Searle has begun to tell an alternative story of intention-
ality, that is no small price to pay in view of the sheer range of correlations
ending up in his account as brute and in that sense inexplicable.
To turn now to our objection, we saw that for Searle social phenomena are
the collective imposition of functions on physical objects. If some object is an
instance of some social phenomenon, then it is because people count it as that
type of phenomenon. People count the object as an instance of the social
phenomenon by applying what Searle calls constitutive rules.

They are always of the logical form: such-and-such counts as having

the status of so-and-so. I like to put this in the form X counts as Y,
or more generally, X counts as Y in (context) C. Thus, in the context
of a chess game, such-and-such a move on the part of a certain shape of
piece counts as a move by the knight. Such-and-such a position on the
board counts as a checkmate. (Searle 1999, 123-24)

We begin by noting that the counts as locution has a broader application

than its role in the assignment of status functions. We can say such things as:

Having a cold counts as being sick.

This claim is more or less equivalent to:

Something can be sick in virtue of having a cold.

The necessity carried by in virtue of and counts as in these claims is logical,

but the locutions introduce more than logical necessity because of their
explanatory import. If someone is sick in virtue of having a cold, we have an
explanation of the sickness. The explanation, of course, is not causal. It is what
we can call a metaphysical explanation. In effect, the explanation consists in
saying that the persons being sick is nothing over and above her having a
cold. In showing that Searle relies on explanatory claims of this sort, it will be
helpful to note that we can distinguish between three things: (i) the rule that X
counts as Y in C, (ii) the (in part performative) utterance X counts as Y in C,
and (iii) the fact that, under certain conditions, X counts as Y in C.
Of course saying that Y is nothing over and above X does not imply that
Y is identical to X. X and Y may belong to numerically distinct domains. For

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Butchard and DAmico 11

example, a physicalist can say that the mental is nothing over and above the
physical while identifying mental properties with functional properties. Our
claim is that when Searle argues that money is nothing over and above the
physical together with collective acceptance, it is a noncausal account. The
way to capture that account is to use expressions such as in virtue of or
counts as for the appropriate sense of nothing over and above.
Then we can say that something is money, for example, just in case, given
that a community of people apply the rule that X counts as Y in C, by uttering
X counts as Y in C, it is a fact that X counts as Y in C. Thus, for some
social phenomena (namely, status functions) the following conditional holds:

If a community of agents applies the constitutive rule that X counts as

Y in C, then X in fact counts as Y in C.

The expression counts as may or may not have the same meaning in the
consequent that it has in the antecedent.3 The first occurrence of counts as
could be unpacked, as Searle intends it to be, completely in terms of collec-
tive acceptance. If a community of agents collectively accepts X in context C
as money, then X in context C is money in virtue of that collective acceptance
or, in other words, X in fact counts as Y in context C. Of course we grant that
then the first occurrence of counts as is unrelated in meaning to the second.
But even if the two occurrences do not have the same meaning, counts as
in the consequent expresses a notion Searle relies on, since this conditional
falls out of his account. What we have here is an in virtue ofstyle general-
ization suitable for a bridge principle. Searle is then relying on the very
explanatory notion we introduced above with the in virtue of locution.
Our argument relies, as can be seen, on what Searle calls the counts as
relation, as in the phrase X counts as Y in C. Since we depend on this idea,
we should consider, albeit briefly, some possible complications with regard
to it. First, as Searle formulates the idea of a status function in The Construction
of Social Reality (Searle 1995a), his point is that some person or objectthe
X termis chosen collectively to count as such and such in some context. Of
course it is a key to Searles entire argument that the object chosen is arbi-
trary, and we will address this point soon since it is the focus of our criticism.
But we are prepared to grant that in the cases Searle discusses the imposition
of a function may well be arbitrary in the way he thinks it is, but granting his
point is clearly not enough to reach the conclusion that social scientific laws

3
Notice that in the antecedent, it seems to indicate some kind of performative speech
act, while in the consequent it does not.

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12 Philosophy of the Social Sciences XX(X)

are impossible in such cases. Also our argument does not aim to show nor
does it need to show that there are laws in all cases where status functions are
imposed, only that some cases involving the counts as relation support law-
like regularities.
Furthermore, there is another form of the counts as relation in which
there is no X term at all. Searle briefly discusses it in a recent publication
(Searle 2010). This is too large a topic to fully consider here, but it does not
bear on our argument. Searle considers this new relation when he says:

Not all impositions of status functions have this form X counts as Y

in C, because sometimes, as in the case of corporations, or electronic
money, we create a status function with deontic power but without
attaching it directly to any person or material object. . . . So the formula
X counts as Y in C is one form, but not the only form . . . of . . .
institutional reality. (Searle 2010, 101)

Thus in this new form the X term is not arbitrary, rather there is no X term
at all. But again this form, should it be as Searle says it is and thus one form
among others, does not by itself show that social-scientific laws are impos-
sible across the board.4 Hence the possibility of cases where no X term exists
are also idle with respect to our objection. Our objection (below) rests upon
showing that in the instance of the imposition of the Y term on persons or
objectsthose cases where Searle considers the X term arbitrarysocial-
scientific laws are possible. It is clear in the wording above that Searle con-
tinues to hold to this original form of status functions we discuss since he
says that the new form happens only sometimes and then describes it as
another form of institutional reality.
As a final comment on these side topics, Searle has general views about
how human actions are caused by nondesire states called deontic powers in
the above passage. For instance, according to Searle, language enables one to

4
Though the so-called freestanding X term form (Smith 2009) does not bear on our
argument, we are in fact doubtful about the example of electronic money that both
Searle and Smith use in their discussions of it. This phrase seems a misnomer for the
wider practice of transmitting records or receipts. A deposit slip is not itself money,
rather it records that the banks client deposited money. It would be obscure to argue
that because deposit slips are not money, then there are no physical objects being
counted as money in that transaction. The phrase electronic money only refers to the
kind and thus the speed of these banking transactions and that is not relevant to the
ontological status of money.

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Butchard and DAmico 13

order another person to leave the room and that order gives the speaker a
reason to allow the other person to leave the room. The reason is had in virtue
of the order, so it is not dependent on the desires of the speaker. Similarly a
bank is an institution that enables a client of the bank to write a check given
the clients deposit of money in the bank. If the client is writing checks, she
has a reason (thereby) to maintain a certain balance, regardless of her desires.
We have no dispute with this account of reasons as causes. But positing deon-
tic power is again idle with respect to our objection to Searles claim about
the impossibility of social-scientific laws because our objection does not con-
cern his account of causation.
To summarize the points above: Searles account of the imposition of sta-
tus functions, key to our present criticism, remains unchanged in his later
works. He only adds another form that we can set aside. Second, while Searles
recent silence about his earlier argument concerning the impossibility of
social-scientific laws may be revealing, the point remains that his recent
work on a general theory of institutional reality does not require that assump-
tion. Thus Searles more recent work, however interesting, does not bear on
our focused objection with regard to his earlier work.
We saw that Searle argues that the physical categories money must belong to
are too broad to bear on what happens in the monetary domain so as to explain
law-like regularities. We noted that the argument seems to have some force
when we focus on bridge principles that cover causal or nomic connections
between the broad physical categories and monetary categories. The argument
is that there could not be connections between these physical categories and
monetary categories that explain monetary regularities. And we cannot hope to
find narrower physical categories that will do the job because the correlations
between these narrower categories and monetary categories could not be strict.
But bridge-principles do not have to be causal or nomic. They can be in
virtue of claims. Given that Searles account of social phenomena introduces
such principles, we need to ask whether durability, handleability, etc. could
after all play the relevant explanatory role, despite their broad character.
It seems that they can. For the broadness of the physical categories becomes
irrelevant when we consider bridge principles of the in virtue of sort. If, as
Searle says, we impose the status of money on objects that belong to these
broad categories, then the regular behavior of those objects does explain the
regular behavior of money. For the physical regularities, together with our
attitudes, count as monetary regularities.
The compatibility of the broad physical categories with narrower physical
categories implies that there will be a large range of possible embodiments of
money. For a given embodiment, there will be physical regularities that play
a role in fixing (qua embodiment) the monetary regularities.

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14 Philosophy of the Social Sciences XX(X)

As a result, we have an explanation of why the two sets of laws predict the
same events. The social-scientific laws are nothing over and above the physical
laws together with our decision to treat certain things as money. The broad char-
acter of the physical requirements on money suggests that there may be countless
narrower physical types that can embody money. But given this tight relation
between the two sets of lawsthe one set being nothing over and above the other
(given our attitudes)they must predict the same events, and the explanatory
character of the relation between the two sets of laws tells us why.
In conclusion, it might be argued that our solution fails because the bridge
principles we propose run afoul of Searles earlier defense that one cannot
secure bridge principles via states of the brain. After all, in explaining the
social in terms of context C, we would in the end have to rely on bridge prin-
ciples connecting the mental phenomena that define C with something physi-
cal, namely, the brain. Thus our proposal is futile.
Before responding to this objection, it is important to briefly review two
points. We proceed, as Searle does, by avoiding as much as possible contro-
versial characterizations of either laws or bridge principles. For example, we
do not entertain here strict physicalist criteria for the truth of our candidate
bridge principles. In particular, our use of counts as in the bridge principles
introduced above does not imply that the mental features that define C are
themselves connected to the brain via bridge principles wherein the mental is
nothing over and above the physical (in other words, that anything physical
counts as regarding something as a medium of exchange). Psychophysical
laws would do just as well.
Second, Searles use of the phrase open-ended with respect to any social
kind does not concern the immense number or complexity of causal connec-
tions for social phenomena; connections, for example, between handleability,
etc. and various states of the brain. Rather it concerns the explanatory rele-
vance of the physical features of social kinds. Thus if the physical states of
money, such as handleability, were explanatorily irrelevant, as Searle claims,
then money would have this fatal open-endedness since brain states inherit
their explanatory irrelevance.
Our proposal is a direct response to Searle on this point since we hold that the
physical features of the social kind in question, in this case money, do have
explanatory relevance. We thus reject a premise of his argument against the pos-
sibility of explanatory connections between money and the brain. We agree with
Searle that the causal interaction between the broad physical categories and the
brain could not itself explain monetary regularities. But that is a limited agree-
ment with him since we hold that the physical aspects of money play an explana-
tory role independently of that afforded by their causal interaction with the brain.
And it is this role that Searle rules out in his main argument.

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Butchard and DAmico 15

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interests with respect to the author-
ship and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this
article.

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Bios
William Butchard is adjunct instructor in philosophy at the University of Florida.
He works in the areas of metaphysics and philosophy of social science. His current
research focuses on the notion of grounding. He has published Intrinsicality without
Naturalness (co-authored with Gene Witmer and Kelly Trogdon) in Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research (March 2005) and presented Grounding Explanations
and the Paradox of Analysis at the Conference on Because at the University of
Geneva, Switzerland (February 2008).

Robert DAmico teaches philosophy at University of Florida and works in the areas
of history of philosophy and philosophy of social science. He has recently published
Disease and the Concept of Supervenience in Establishing Medical Reality
(Springer, 2007) and Historicism in A Companion to the Philosophy of History and
Historiography, (Blackwell, 2009).

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