International Phenomenological Society

The Nature of Social Reality

Author(s): Theodore R. Schatzki
Source: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 49, No. 2 (Dec., 1988), pp. 239-260
Published by: International Phenomenological Society
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Philosophyand PhenomenologicalResearch
Vol. XLIX, No. z, December i988

The Nature of Social Reality

THEODORE R. SCHATZKI
University of Kentucky

As in all areas of philosophy, central problems in social theory and the

philosophy of social science' have received many different proposed solu-
tions during the past 1 50 years or so. Given this profusion, one wonders if
there is any systematic and principled way of taking a stand on them. One
time-honored viewpoint in philosophy maintains that the nature of the
objects studied by a discipline has consequences for how that discipline
can and should investigate, conceptualize, and theorize about them. It
seems reasonable to suppose, therefore, that the nature of the objects
studied by social science has consequences for questions such as the
nature of social explanation and interpretation, the types of concepts
appropriate in social science, the role of causality in human affairs, and
the differences between natural and social science. It is naive to believe
that analyzing these objects could provide complete solutions to these
questions; but it seems plausible to expect that it can furnish at least the
central elements. So one principled and systematic way of proceeding in
social theory and the philosophy of-social science is to investigate the con-
sequences that follow for issues in these fields from the nature of the
objects that the social disciplines study.
Now the objects studied by social science include social structure, e.g.,
kinship structure, historical events, artistic and political movements,
types of government, socio-economic classes, historical eras, technology,
and the functioning of a market economy. Such phenomena clearly form a
set heterogeneous in nature. But if so, then it is not obvious how pursuing
the strategy of seeing what consequences follow for social science from
the character of its objects of study will very quickly help us understand
social science. If, however, there is something like social reality, then all
social phenomena, and thus all objects of social inquiry, will be aspects or

I use the expression 'social science' in the sense of the German expression
'Sozialwissenschaft', which means 'organized social investigation' and does not connote
any particular ideal for the social disciplines.

THE NATURE OF SOCIAL REALITY 239

parts of it. So if one has an account of social reality, such an account
specifies ipso facto the material of which all social phenomena consist. An
account of social reality, consequently makes possible a comprehensive
account of the nature, that is, the constitution, of all objects of social sci-
ence. Carrying out the above systematic way of addressing issues in social
theory and the philosophy of social science thus requires that one first
analyze the nature of social reality and subsequently trace the conse-
quences this analysis has for the constitution of social phenomena (includ-
ing the nature of social causality) and the character of social inquiry.
This strategy descends from a project of William Dilthey's carried out
at the end of the nineteenth century. In his philosophical work, Dilthey
was particularly interested in the nature of the comprehension attained by
the human sciences. He based his account of this comprehension on his
analyses of (a) the everyday understanding of others of which scientific
comprehension in the human sciences is an extension and (b) the constitu-
tion of the phenomena that these sciences study. But although he referred
in this context to something he called 'social-historical' or 'human-social
or 'menschlich-gesellschaftliche
reality' ('gesellschaftlich-geschichtliche'
Wirklichkeit'), he neither explained what this phenomenon is nor pro-
posed analyzing it in order to determine the nature of the objects studied
by the human sciences. A further step was taken by Heidegger, however,
who appropriated the notion of historical reality from Dilthey and gave a
partial account of it in Being and Time under the guise of an analysis of
existence. As we will see, my account is indebted to his analysis. Heideg-
ger believed, moreover, that an analysis of historical reality furnishes the
basis for an account of the historical sciences.' He himself, however,
never pursued this line of inquiry. So the above outlined way of proceed-
ing, described from a historical perspective, aims first to provide a detailed
analysis of the basic structure of social reality, an analysis to which Dil-
they pointed and which Heidegger partially worked out, and then to use
this analysis to give an account of the objects and nature of social science
- a possibility recognized implicitly by Dilthey and explicitly by Heideg-
ger.
Before presenting my account of social reality, I want to make three
preliminary points. The first is that what is important about an analysis of
social reality is that, once one has adopted a particular such analysis, one
must stick to it and accept its consequences when either pursuing issues in
the philosophy of social science or investigating social and historical phe-
nomena. The following tendency is common in social theory. In an early

' See Martin Heidegger, History of the Concept of Time, trans. Theodore Kiesel (Bloom-
ington: Indiana University Press, i985), p. z.

240 THEODORE R. SCHATZKI

chapter, a social theorist outlines an account of the basic structures of
social existence. Then, in later chapters, while discussing a particular
issue, the theorist writes as if social phenomena had a character different
from that implied by what was outlined before. He or she thus fails to
abide by the earlier specification of the nature of the objects of social
inquiry. This is why what counts about an analysis of social reality is not
so much the analysis itself as the implications it holds for the constitution
of social phenomena and the character of social investigation. After hav-
ing accepted an account of social reality, one must not either describe
social phenomena in a way contravening, or employ forms of explanation
incompatible with, what the account implies about their nature.
The second preliminary point concerns an objection that someone
might raise to the very project of analyzing the nature of social reality. The
objection runs: Isn't ontology a scientific question? That is, shouldn't we
leave it to social science to tell us;about the basic nature of social reality?
After all, this is what we do today in the case of physical reality and physi-
cal science. Although philosophers once made pronouncements on the
fundamental nature of physical reality, today we expect scientists to tell
the rest of us about this reality's basic components and character. So why
should it be any different in the case of social reality and social science?
Shouldn't we let the sociologists, anthropologists, and economists, etc.,
tell us what there is fundamentally to social existence?
The question, "What is the basic nature of social reality?", is an
abstract ontological question which sounds like the sort of question that
philosophers just as much as social scientists might try to answer. Conse-
quently, if someone wanted to construe this issue as the exclusive province
of social science, it could only be on the presumption that, just as in the
case of physical reality and physical science, scientists are in a better posi-
tion than philosophers to answer it. Unlike physical science, however,
social science is in great disarray. Not only is there a mass of empirical
data with hardly any good theory - in fact, many social scientists con-
cede that social science has yet to discover a single law, even in economics
but fundamental divisions among theoretical schools in this general
discipline often reflect different conceptions of social reality. If, conse-
quently, we were to hand over to social scientists the question, "What is
the nature of social reality?", we would get as great a variety of answers as
we would if philosophers answered it. This fact, together with the theoret-
ical disorder it reflects, however, undermine the presumption upon which
consigning this topic to social science rests. It seems that philosophers are
in no worse position than social theorists to pronounce on this issue.

THE NATURE OF SOCIAL REALITY 241

 Someone who strongly believes that social science alone can pass judg-
ment on the fundamental nature of its own domain of study might try to
accommodate the propriety of philosophers addressing the issue by con-
struing the accounts of social reality they offer as part of social science. On
this line of thinking, all social ontologies, all analyses of the basic struc-
tures constitutive of social existence, are part of the theoretical side of the
social disciplines regardless of their origin. The task of analyzing the
nature of social reality is, however, closely tied up with a slew of perennial
philosophical problems. Thus the foundations of social investigation are
as much a philosophical as a social theoretical issue. There is no reason,
consequently, to insist that social ontologies belong to the theoretical side
of social science as opposed to philosophy. This disciplinary division of
labor should be buried in recognition of the fact that there is no hard and
fast line between philosophy and social theory. Incidentally, in saying that
social ontologies are part of the theoretical side of social science, I do not
mean that social ontologies are theories of the type typically found in nat-
ural science which operate with explanatory laws and universal proposi-
tions tested or testable - at least indirectly - by experiment. Rather, they
are theories in the sense of abstract, general formulations that are
defended both intuitively and argumentatively. This is, of course, how
philosophical theories in general are defended, a coincidence which rein-
forces the claim that there is no clear-cut line between philosophy and
social theory. Thus, in sum, because one place where philosophy and
social science merge is in the analysis of social reality, there is no question
of handing over this analysis to social scientists.
The third and final preliminary remark is that, compared to some peo-
ple's intuitions, the following conception of social reality will initially
seem rather minimal. I want it to be clear that I am not steadfastly pursu-
ing a nominalist- gambit or methodically pruning with Occam's razor. I
am not saying, a la Quine on psychology, that this is all we need ascribe to
social reality in order to do social science. Some social scientists operate as
if there were more to social reality than what I ascribe to it, whereas others
operate in ways compatible with my account. I aim, I hope not naively, to
give an analysis unsullied by nominalist or realist preconceptions, or by
particular assumptions about what social science should be, or by politi-
cal or ideological convictions, or by a desire that some particular thing or
other not be considered part of social reality.
Let us now turn to the analysis itself. My general intuition is that social
reality is the concrete, empirical reality of actual social life. My more
specific thesis concerns what in particular constitutes this concrete reality.
I do not believe it is possible to prove that this guiding intuition is correct.

24Z THEODORE R. SCHATZKI

There are no concise, straightforward arguments in its favor that are
stronger or more convincing than it itself. It is possible, however, to
defend this intuition indirectly. One way to accomplish this is to lay out
the full accounts of social reality and of social phenomena that follow
from it and to show thereby what it is capable of. I have pursued this task
elsewhere.3 Here, however, I will try a different strategy. The following
motivation for my conception of social reality is based, first, on a
definition of 'social reality' and, second, on a claim about which state of
the world satisfies this definition.
What is meant by the expression 'social reality'? Reality is the totality
of what (really) is. Social reality, as a result, can be formally and neutrally
defined as that part of what is that is social. An analysis of the nature of
social reality, accordingly, formally speaking, is an account of that part of
what is that is social. Although this definition is a tautology, it is a useful
start towards spelling out what social reality is. Consider this part of the
definition: 'what is'. Think of experience as giving us access to reality, to
what really is. What I mean is that reality is there, for the most part inde-
pendent of any particular person's experience, and that experience is
something by means of which people apprehend reality. In saying this, I
imply neither that we can nor that we cannot experience all of reality, all
of what is. Thus I write 'the world (or reality) to which experience gives us
access' instead of the 'world of experience' to emphasize that the world, or
reality, is something which might extend beyond individuals' experience
of it. 'World of experience' carries the connotation of that part of the
world, of what really is, that a given individual has experienced. So, social
reality is that part of the world of which experience gives us access that is
social.
Consider now a different part of the formal definition of social reality:
that is social. What does 'social' mean? Whereas the Latin 'socialis' con-
notes companionship, the word 'social' is used in modern times to qualify
any mode of human coexistence whatsoever. Hence, a rough and intuitive
definition of 'social' is 'constitutive of human coexistence'. Thus, in sum,
social reality is that part of the world to which experience gives us access
that constitutes the realm of human coexistence. Now what part is that?
My answer is: interrelated ongoing lives. Social reality consists in
interrelated ongoing lives. By 'ongoing life' I mean, in the first place, the
continuous passage of human life. Social reality consists, as a result, in the
interrelatedness of the continuous passage of different people's lives;

3 See my Ph.D. dissertation, Social Reality and Social Science (University of California,
Berkeley, i986). This dissertation also contains more detailed versions of the accounts of
social reality and of ongoing life presented in the following pages.

THE NATURE OF SOCIAL REALITY 243

hence in the interrelatedness of what determines, occurs in, and is pro-
duced by human lives. Interrelated ongoing lives, in other words, is the
concrete, empirical reality in which actual social existence consists.
I further analyze ongoing life, or moment-to-moment existence, as
series of actions that are governed by practical intelligibility and per-
formed in interconnected, local settings. Practical intelligibility is what
makes sense to an actor to do. I shall explain what this means in a
moment. It should be pointed out that this analysis of ongoing life is an
interpretation of Heidegger's notion of being-in-the-world.4 To be-in-
the-world is to be continuously performing actions in interconnected set-
tings and in line with what makes sense to do. And this means, in turn,
that on my account, using Heidegger's language, social reality is the
interrelatedness of different people's being-in-interconnected-worlds.
Before developing my analysis of ongoing life in greater detail, I should
interject a methodological comment. This analysis is an account of some-
thing of which people continuously have experience: the passage of
human life. Because it did not arise from introspecting and describing my
own experience of life, it is not Husserlian phenomenology, which con-
sists in reporting what something shows itself from itself as being when it
is directly intuited, for instance, in experience or in a Wesensanschauung.
It is, however, Heideggerian phenomenology in the sense in which Hei-
degger defines phenomenology in Being and Time. For Heidegger, doing
phenomenology means simply that whatever one says about an object
under analysis must be directly exhibited and demonstrated in the object
itself.5 The analysis is a product of thinking informed by knowledge, lived
experience, and a tradition of philosophical and social theory. A person's
experience of life provides a test for it. For an interpretation that says that
human existence consists in such and such thereby provides a description
of what is going on in human life. So, if the interpretation is any good, it
should be exhibitable and demonstrable in people's experience of their
own lives (assuming, of course, that they understand the concepts
employed by the interpretation). Thus, anyone can test my account of
moment-to-moment human existence by "consulting," so to speak, his or
her own experience and seeing if this is the case. These considerations also
apply to the following more detailed account of the elements of and
interrelations between lives.

4 See Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson
(Oxford:BasilBlackwell,1978), division i, chaptersI-5.
5 Ibid., p. 59-

244 THEODORE R. SCHATZKI

 As stated, practical intelligibility is what makes sense to an actor to do.
It governs action by determining what an actor does. Most of the time its
making sense to a person to perform a particular action is an instance of
rationality. In these cases, what makes sense to people are actions that are
considered to be permitted, appropriate, prudent, efficacious, sensible,
called for, and so on. What, for instance, usually makes sense to an Ameri-
can to do when approaching a red traffic light is what is prudent and sup-
posed to happen; unless, say, he knows that his friend who lives a block
further down the street is about to attempt suicide, and there is no cross
traffic, in which case what might make sense to him to do is what is called
for: going through the red light. Practical intelligibility, however, is a
wider phenomenon than rationality. Although, for example, it might be
rational for someone to stop at a red light, it might be the case that she is so
distraught about her course grade that she is not at all inclined to stop; or
is so amused at the choice, to stop or not to stop, that she is inclined to give
a laugh at the absurdities of modern existence and to cruise merrily
through the intersection. When its making sense to a person to perform a
particular action is not a case of rationality, what makes sense to him is an
action that is considered to be inflammatory, crazy, flamboyant, or so on.
In saying that people do what makes sense to them to do, therefore, I do
not imply that what makes sense to them to do always makes sense, i.e., is
sensible.6 Sometimes, especially when things matter in unusual ways, it
makes sense to people to perform actions that others or the actor (even at
the time of acting) might consider foolish, crazy, or ridiculous, etc. It can
even make sense to someone to do something absurd. The point of saying
that action is governed by what makes sense to the actor to do is to indi-
cate that what animates, determines, and specifies the content of action is
an actor-relative intelligibility. This intelligibility, however, does not nec-
essarily respect canons of reasonableness, sanity, or prudence.
Nor, moreover, is its making sense to someone to do something always
teleological in character. An action is teleological when it is performed for
the sake of some state of existence or other. But not everything that makes
sense to someone to do does so for the sake of some particular state of
existence. When in the grip of a depression, for instance, it might make
sense to someone to say something nasty to his best friend but not for the
sake of anything.
Now, what makes sense to a person to do is determined by a range of
what can be called 'intelligibility-determining factors': ends, ideas
(including concepts and thoughts), mattering, knowledge, tasks and
projects, rules, paradigms, customs, and setting. Ends are states of exis-

6
This paragraphrespondsto a questionposed by ProfessorSydneyMorgenbesser.

THE NATURE OF SOCIAL REALITY 245

tence for the sake of which a person is willing to act. An important sub-
type are goals. By 'mattering', I mean how things matter to someone. How
things matter is a crucial and omnipresent determinant of what makes
sense to a person to do. 'Rules', on the other hand, refer to explicitly for-
mulated directives and instructions, whereas 'paradigms' refer to exem-
plary ways of being and acting honored by some group of people. By
'customs', I mean widespread, accepted ways of acting into the practice of
which people are "socialized." And by including setting on this list I indi-
cate that the objects and events people encounter in settings often help
determine what makes sense to them to do. It should also be obvious that
both what a person knows and the tasks and projects in which he or she is
already engaged also help determine practical intelligibility. Incidentally,
I do not claim that this list is complete. It is in the nature of phenomenol-
ogy never conclusively to know if it has completely described its objects.
So someone might be able to think of other sorts of phenomena that deter-
mine what makes sense to people to do.
Besides actions and intelligibility-determining factors, another impor-
tant component of ongoing life is setting. Social ontologies often neglect
to treat setting as a basic element of social reality. Although theorists typi-
cally acknowledge the existence of settings, in particular the physical
products of action found in them, until recently7 the only writers who
accorded these phenomena a systematic place in their general, theoretical
formulations were writers who either belonged to the phenomenological
tradition or who had been influenced by Hegel's notion of objective
spirit.8 Setting, however, is obviously an highly important phenomenon
in social existence. Generally speaking, it plays a dual role in ongoing exis-
tence. First, many actions are actions taken toward and in response to the
people, events, and objects encountered in settings. This fact is part of the
story about why the distribution of entities in settings helps constitute the
spatiality of human existence. The second role that setting plays is that the
actions and entities people encounter in settings help mold which particu-
lar intelligibility-determining factors determine what makes sense to them
to do. People become familiar with particular rules, paradigms, ideas, and
so on, for instance, by encountering books, movies, actions, including lin-

7 See Anthony Giddens, Central Problems in Social Theory (Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 1979), especially pp. zoi-io; Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Soci-
ety (Berkeley: University of California Press, i984), chapter 3; Erving Goffman, The
Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1959);
also, ethnomethodology in general.
8 Wilhelm Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 19Z7), volume 7; and
Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (Garden City:
Doubleday,I966).

246 THEODORE R. SCHATZKI

guistic actions, etc. Think also of the role that persuasion, indoctrination,
threats, and pedagogy in the widest sense play in molding what makes
sense to people to do.
Since social reality consists in interrelated ongoing lives, a fourth major
component of this reality are the interrelations between lives. One should
not think of an individual life as something which is fully formed before it
subsequently enters into relations with other lives. Although I have
described the nature of ongoing life before discussing interrelations, this
order reflects expository and methodological, but not ontological, prior-
ity. Individual lives are not fully-formed atoms which exist independently
of the external relations they maintain among one another, the entering
into which would, on an atomistic way of thinking, constitute social exis-
tence. Not only do lives take shape through interaction with one another,
but an individual life, merely by being a life, is thereby entangled in a mul-
titude of interrelations. This will be clearer if I describe the five main types
of interrelations. The first is the interpersonal molding of intelligibility.
This is the way intelligibility-determining factors are distributed across
different lives. An important subtype of interpersonal molding is com-
monality: the same factor, e.g., the same rule or idea, determining what
makes sense to each of a plurality of people to do. The second type of
interrelation consists in people being the object of the intelligibility-
determining factors governing the behavior of others. Person A's life is
related to that of person B when A knows something about B, or A thinks
something about B, or B matters to A in some way, and so on. The third
type of interrelation are connections in the realm of setting. This type
embraces a variety of subtypes. Examples include (a) people responding
to the same phenomenon in a particular setting (e.g., schoolchildren
responding to the teacher's entrance into the classroom), (b) temporally-
dispersed actions being coordinated by the presence of a particular object
in a particular setting (e.g., a mailbox on a street corner), and (c) physical
connections such as bridges and the telephone system. The fourth type of
interrelation is chains of action, which are series of actions each member
of which is a response to the previous member or to a change the previous
member brought about in the world. And finally, the fifth central type are
recurring actions. People's lives are interrelated when they perform the
same action.
So, to sum up, social reality consists in interrelated ongoing lives. This
means that the phenomena in which social reality has its being are the phe-
nomena constituting and interrelating lives: (i) actions, (z) intelligibility-
determining factors, (3) the entities found in settings, and (4) interrela-
tions. Notice that my ontology is a form of individualism. The essence of

THE NATURE OF SOCIAL REALITY 247

individualism lies in the exclusion of formations and structures that are
something independent of or in addition to individual lives or people; and
on my account there is nothing more to social reality than the elements of
and interrelations between individual lives. As I will discuss in a moment,
however, this claim does not deny the existence of social phenomena such
as institutions, historical events, and economic systems. It implies only
that what they are must be understood in a certain way.
Although my analysis is a form of individualism, it must be seen as an
expanded form. For it does not say, as did the Methodological Individual-
ism of von Hayek, Popper,and Watkinsin the 1950S and i96os, that all
there is to social reality are individuals (that is, their actions and mental
states) and relations between individuals.9 My account differs from this
traditional form of individualism on three counts. First, unlike the tradi-
tional analysis, it acknowledges the important, constitutive role that set-
ting plays in ongoing life. Second, it recognizes that action is governed by
a number of intelligibility-determining factors that are not states of indi-
viduals but entities found in the world: rules, paradigms, customs, and,
again, setting. And third, it offers a rich account of the interrelations
between lives, whereas the above writers failed to specify concretely what
they meant by 'relations between individuals'.
Now, as I wrote earlier, the significance of my account of social reality
lies in its implications for the constitution of social phenomena and the
character of social inquiry. It also excludes certain types of phenomena
from social reality. Examining one such type of phenomena will help clar-
ify my analysis.
A good example of the two-fold conception of social reality character-
istic of Marxism and structuralism is found in Roy Bhaskar's book The
Possibility of Naturalism. According to Bhaskar, the two components of
which social reality consists are, first, actions and the material products of
action, and second, the necessary, nonempirical conditions of actions and
products. Bhaskar refers to the sum-total of these conditions as 'society'.
More specifically, society, for him, consists in multiple systems of rela-
tions between individuals (e.g., capitalist-worker) and between individu-
als and objects (e.g., worker-machine), as well as the relations between
these relations. These relations do not hold between actual individuals,
however, but instead between "positions (places, functions, rules, tasks,
duties, rights, etc.) occupied (filled, assumed, enacted, etc.) by individuals
and . . . practices (activities, etc.) in which, in virtue of their occupancy
of these positions (and vice versa), they engage."'0 These positions and

9 This is also more or less Alfred Schutz' position. See Theory of Social Action, ed. Rich-
ard Grathoff (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978), pp. 56-57.

248 THEODORE R. SCHATZKI

practices form a system governed by certain structures of relations, the
description of which is the task of social science.
Actions and the products of action are as much part of social reality on
my account as on Bhaskar's. But this is not true of what he calls 'society'.
Bhaskar sees systems of nonempirical relations between places and prac-
tices as real phenomena in addition to the phenomena of ongoing life. On
my account, however, social reality does not contain systems of nonem-
pirical relations. The interrelations out of which social reality consists are
concrete, empirical relations between actions, people, intelligibility-
determining factors, and the entities found in settings.
Bhaskar's argument for the reality of these systems goes as follows. He
first points out that one criterion in science for the existence of a phenom-
enon is its having the capacity to bring about changes. He then claims that
the systems he describes are not only structural preconditions for inten-
tional action, but also generative structures that produce actions and their
products." So because "but for society certain physical actions would
not occur,"" it follows on scientific criteria that society must be a real
phenomenon different from and in addition to action and its products.
I agree with Bhaskar that possessing causal efficacy is a criterion of
something's actually existing. Talk of causal efficacy, causal power, and
being a generative structure, however, requires that anything that pos-
sesses these properties be something that actually brings about changes. In
his discussion of natural science, accordingly, Bhaskar assigns these prop-
erties to natural "mechanisms." He subsequently claims that relations
between positions and places are analogous to the mechanisms examined
in natural science. But it is not at all obvious, and Bhaskar fails to explain,
why these relations can be so construed. If the effect that systems of rela-
tions have on action is analogous to, say, the effect a magnetic field has on
iron filings,'3 we are owed an explanation of this analogy. This is all the
more the case since there exist well-developed theories in natural science
about the mechanisms underlying the latter effect, theories, moreover,
that employ "causal" laws (which on Bhaskar's account, express the ten-
dencies of these mechanisms), whereas such theories and laws are lacking
in social science. Bhaskar provides no reason, however, for treating these
systems as mechanisms with causal powers. Moreover, he does not men-
tion any other way of conceiving how these systems can generate or

I Roy Bhaskar, The Possibility of Naturalism (Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humani-
ties Press, 1979), p. 5I.

See ibid., pp. 24 and 66.

" Ibid., p. 49.
'3 Bhaskar mentions the latter effect at ibid., e.g., pp. 32 and 57; cf. the third line from the
bottom on p. 194.

THE NATURE OF SOCIAL REALITY 249

produce anything. So he does not justify reifying them and treating them
as an additional part of social reality.'4 Talk of systems of relations
between places and practices makes sense only as a higher-order scheme
of description that either (i) subsumes the elements of and interrelations
between lives under higher-order types or (z) gives names to particular
combinations of these elements and interrelations. In general, I believe,
though I cannot show this here, using the possession of causal properties
as a criterion for the existence of something does not require that we
admit into social reality anything that is not a feature of interrelated ongo-
ing lives.
It may be, however, that Bhaskar does not mean that systems of rela-
tions have generative powers in addition to being the preconditions of
action, but, instead, that their having these powers is nothing but their
making these actions possible. This is not the place to discuss whether
making possible is a causal notion. It should be noted, however, that
Bhaskar is right that particular actions and products presuppose
"systems" and that, if X makes Y possible and Y exists, then so, too, does
X. Teaching a class, for instance, presupposes the educational system; so
if teaching occurs, the educational system must exist. But this does not
mean that the educational system is a system of related nonempirical rela-
tions. Rather, the educational system that teaching presupposes is a total-
ity of particular and recurrent actions and chains of action together with
ways in which intelligibility is interpersonally molded and entities in set-
tings are laid out and connected such that and as a part of which it can and
does make sense to particular people to perform particular actions.
It is also worth pointing out that one consequence of my account of
social reality is that this reality does not contain unexperienceable types of
phenomena. Both the elements of ongoing lives (actions, intelligibility-
determining factors, and entities in settings) as well as the interrelations
between lives are types of phenomena instances of which people can -
and do - experience. On the usual empiricist account of experience, of
course, intelligibility-determining factors such as goals, knowledge, and
mattering are not themselves encountered in experience, but instead, are
interpretively ascribed to objects of experience, usually human beings.
But, in truth, not only do people experience goals, knowledge, and mat-
tering, etc., determining what makes sense to they themselves to do, but it
seems to me that we also experience this in the case of others. In everyday
life, we often immediately encounter people acting for the sake of some
goal, or acting on the basis of a certain piece of knowledge, or being con-

4 This lacuna has not been filled in Bhaskar's latest book, Scientific Realism and Human
Emancipation (London: Verso, i987).

Z50 THEODORE R. SCHATZKI

cerned in such and such a way. We also experience interrelations between
lives, for instance, chains of action and things mattering the same to a plu-
rality of people.
Since explicating the notion of experience here invoked would take us
too far afield, I will not pursue the question of experienceability further.
Allow me, however, to point out what I am not saying. My claim is that
social reality does not contain any types of phenomena, all instances of
which are unexperienceable. An example of such a type of entity would be
the systems of relations Bhaskar propounds. But I am not claiming, as
Alfred Schutz did, that all phenomena in social reality are the objects of
either actual or possible experience. The reason why not all social phe-
nomena are actually experienced is because people do not experience (i.e.,
in this context, they are not aware of) both many of the factors that deter-
mine what makes sense to them to do and many of the interrelations that
link their lives. There may also be aspects of ongoing life that no one has
yet consciously experienced. Not all phenomena in social reality are the
objects of possible experience, moreover, since those interrelations that
embrace elements of spatially and temporally discontiguous lives cannot
be experienced precisely because of this discontiguity.
This concludes the sketch of my account of the nature of social reality.
As suggested, many of the consequences that this account has for social
theory and the philosophy of social science are based on its implications
about the constitution of the objects studied by the social disciplines. I will
now illustrate these implications by briefly sketching what overarching
social formations look like on my account. I will then conclude by rebut-
ting a famous objection that has been raised against reducing social facts
to individualist facts.
Overarching social formations are social formations embracing a plu-
rality of lives, e.g., economic systems, political alliances, wars, football
games, peer groups, conversations, artistic movements, and historical
events. By definition, these formations are parts of social reality. Thus,
because social reality is-nothing but interrelated ongoing lives, these for-
mations must consist in features of interrelated lives. This means that they
consist in combinations of phenomena of the following types: (i) actions,
(z) entities in settings, (3) intelligibility-determining factors, and (4)
interrelations. An overarching formation is simply, (i.e., is nothing but) a
particular collection of elements and interrelations. It is not the case that
there are two categories of phenomena: overarching formations, on the
one hand, and elements and interrelations, on the other. Rather, we call
certain totalities of elements and interrelations 'American Government',
'The Battle of Waterloo', 'the fall of Rome', and so on; and other expres-

THE NATURE OF SOCIAL REALITY 25 1

sions for overarching formations designate types under which such totali-
ties can be subsumed, e.g., racial discrimation and government oppres-
sion. The Battle of Walterloo, for instance, consisted (i) in an array of
interdependent and recurring actions performed by Napoleon's and Well-
ington's soldiers (shooting, charging, resting, eating dinner, giving orders,
etc.); (z) in the settings in which these actions took place (front-lines, com-
mand posts, woods, ponds, tents, road intersections, etc.), and, further-
more, in some of the connections between these settings (roads, paths, and
open fields, etc.); and (3) in particular intelligibility-determining factors,
and in an interpersonal structuring of factors, that determined what made
sense to the soldiers, individually or collectively, to do, e.g., the rule: obey
the orders of officers, the knowledge that Wellington's artillery is located
on a particular hill, the goal of winning the battle, the task of plotting a
strategy against Napoleon's counter-thrust in the valley, the concern of
not wanting to die, and so on. Notice, by the way, that a consequence of
this account of overarching formations is that one criterion for the exis-
tence of any alleged social phenomena is whether it consists in combina-
tions of elements and interrelations.
As the Waterloo example shows, overarching social formations consist
in both individual elements of, as well as interrelations between, lives.
Many overarching formations, however, and certainly most that are of
significance for the course of human affairs, consist largely in interrela-
tions. In fact, overarching formations form a spectrum defined by the
extent to which they consist in persisting interrelations. At one end of the
spectrum lie more event-like formations. An example is the battle of
Waterloo. Such formations are only to a small extent composed of persist-
ing interrelations. At the other end of the spectrum lie more enduring for-
mations. An example is the educational system, which is characterized by
the same actions and chains of action (e.g., lecturing, questioning and
answering) being repeatedly performed in the same settings and types of
settings (e.g., classrooms), in entities (e.g., blackboards, desks) being
repeatedly laid out and connected in the same ways, and in the same fac-
tors repeatedly determining what makes sense to pluralities of people to
do (e.g., the goal of getting a good grade, the task of preparing lectures).
Notice that the more enduring a formation is the more it is true that terms
for overarching formations name "structures of relations between things
a pattern or order in which different things can be related to one
another."'5 It should also be pointed out that any particular element or
interrelation can be part of more than one overarching formation.

IS F. A. von Hayek, The Counter-Revolution in Science (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press,
'952), P. 55.

252 THEODORE R. SCHATZKI

 Now, in any given spatial-temporal swath of social reality, there exists
an indefinite number of interrelations. This fact implies, first, that any
particular formation never contains all the interrelations that exist in any
particular swath of this reality, and second, that regardless of how many
interrelations help constitute a given formation, the lives it embraces are
further interrelated in various ways. It also implies, third, that any swath
of social reality contains an indefinite number of overarching social for-
mations. Social reality is exceedingly complex, a fact which has important
consequences for the nature of social science. Of course, some formations
are far more significant than others for the course and character of human
affairs. (No one, for instance, would make anything of the persisting
chain of actions consisting in people looking at someone who asks a ques-
tion in class.) An important part of social science, accordingly, is discover-
ing those that are. The formations and types of formation investigated by
social scientists and designated by their concepts are those constituted by
the elements, interrelations, persisting interrelations, and types thereof
that are either significant in the course of human affairs and/or of greatest
interest to investigators.
It should also be pointed out that, although overarching social forma-
tions consist in features of interrelated individual lives, it does not follow
that these formations are voluntaristic. People intentionally and know-
ingly bring about only some of the formations embracing their lives.
Examples are political alliances, business clubs, sports franchises, and cul-
tural exchanges. In general, however, people are unaware not only of
some of the factors that determine what makes sense to them to do, but
also of many of the interrelations, and thus many of the formations, link-
ing their lives. Further, people, individually or collectively, are often
unable to control the unfolding of events. So people do not intentionally
and knowingly bring about or control many social formations, e.g.,
nations, economic systems, social classes, historical eras, and the course
of a battle or a political debate. Most overarching social formations are,
to use the standard phrase, unintentional consequences of action.
These remarks hardly constitute a proper discussion of the nature of
social formations. As stated, however, I aim only to sketch the conse-
quences my account of social reality has for the objects of social science.
The remainder of this paper explores these consequences further by criti-
cizing a well-known objection to positions such as my own that reduce
social entities to individualist ones.

THE NATURE OF SOCIAL REALITY 253

 In "Societal Facts,"'6 Maurice Mandelbaum claims that social facts,
facts concerning the forms of organization in a society, are irreducible to
and equally as ultimate as psychological facts, facts concerning the
thoughts and actions of individual people. He takes this thesis to be equiv-
alent to the claim that concepts and statements referring to the former
cannot be reduced, i.e., translated, without remainder to concepts and
statements referringto the latter. His argument for this latter claim, more-
over, is that the reduction of any statement of a social fact, S, into state-
ments of individual psychological facts, II, . . ., Insmust employ addi-
tional statements referring to further social facts which define the
conditions under which the facts referred to by II, . . ., In occur.'7 For
example, let S = 'John is a bank teller'. (The following is a reformulation of
Mandelbaum's example.) If II, . . ., In = statements aboutJohn's behav-
ior (perhaps together with statements about the behavior to which John's
behavior is a reaction), then S can be reduced to II, . . ., In only if, in
addition, we specify that the latter statements refer to those episodes alone
of John's behavior that are performed in his capacity as bank teller. Frying
eggs for breakfast, for example, is not the sort of behavior which we want
to be among the actions to which we reduce John's being a bank teller.
Mandelbaum's claim is that the appropriate episodes can be specified only
with the use of concepts and statements referring to further social facts.
Mandelbaum formulates his argument in terms of concepts and state-
ments referring to facts. In speaking of translation, moreover, he some-
times makes it seem like the question he addresses is whether social con-
cepts and the statements formulated with them are equivalent in meaning
to psychological concepts and statements formulated with them. My
claims about the constitution of social reality and social formations, how-
ever, are agnostic about how the meaning of social concepts and state-
ments should be analyzed. I am noncommittal, moreover, about whether
it makes sense to speak of statements 'referring' to facts. To show where
my analysis of social reality contravenes and gives rise to criticisms of
Mandelbaum's position, therefore, I will reformulate his position explic-
itly in terms of truth. Thus, where he speaks of the facts to which state-
ments formulated with social concepts 'refer', I will take him to be speak-
ing of those facts in which the truth of these statements consists. By 'the
facts in which the truth of a statement consists', moreover, I mean what
there is in the world to the statement's being true (if it is true; if the state-

i6
Maurice Mandelbaum, "Societal Facts," British Journal of Sociology 6 (I955): 305-17.
Reprinted in Philosophy of Social Explanation, ed. Alan Ryan (Oxford University
Press, 1973), pp. 105-i8.
17 Mandelbaum,op. cit., pp. iii and 113.

254 THEODORE R. SCHATZKI

ment is false, there isn't anything in the world to its being true.)'8 In the
following, therefore, facts will be construed as the nonlinguistic entities in
which the truth of (true) statements consists. I will construe the reducibil-
ity of statements, moreover, as an issue of truth and not one of either refer-
ence or meaning. The question of whether a given statement "reduces" to
a set of other statements is the question of whether that in which the truth
of that statement consists is (the totality of) that in which the truth of these
other statements consists. Thus when I speak of a statement appearing in
the "reduction" of a given statement, this will mean that what there is in
the world to the former being true is part of what there is in the world to
the latter being true. So, for example, 'The Wells Fargo Bank collapsed'
appears in the reduction of 'The earthquake devastated San Francisco',
since what there is in the world to the first statement's being true, a partic-
ular building falling to the ground at a certain point in the past, is part of
what there is in the world to the second statement's being true. Finally, I
will use the expression 'social concepts' to designate concepts of the forms
of organization in a society and the expression 'psychological concepts' to
designate concepts of thoughts and actions. Mandelbaum's claim, then, is
that social facts, that which constitute the truth of social statements (state-
ments formulated with social concepts), are irreducible to and equally as
ultimate as psychological facts, that which constitute the truth of psycho-
logical statements (statements formulated with psychological concepts
but without social concepts). This thesis is equivalent to the claim that
that in which the truth of social statements consists cannot be made up
solely of that in which the truth of psychological statements consists. And
the argument for this claim is that specifying that (i.e., the social fact) in
which the truth of a given social statement consists in terms of that (i.e.,
the psychological facts) in which-the truth of psychological statements
II . . . Inconsists always presupposes further social facts which define

A
Talkingaboutwhatthereis intheworldto a statement's witha
beingtrueis compatible
wide variety of theories of truth. If, for instance, truth is construed as correspondence to
the facts (in a sense of 'facts' different from that defined in the text) then that in which the
truth of a statement consists is the fact to which the statement corresponds. If, on another
hand, one construes a statement's being true as the obtaining of the state of affairs that, in
the making of the statement, is stated to obtain, then that in which the truth of that state-
ment consists is what there is in the world to that state of affairs obtaining. Of course,
some will dispute calling any nonlinguistic entities 'facts', but nothing in my argument
turns essentially on this designation. In any case, for the purposes of this paper, it is not
necessary to take a stand on the analysis of truth. I also might point out, in anticipation of
my argument, that it is because my analysis of social reality provides an account of what
there is to social reality that I am able to challenge Mandelbaum's position on the specific
issue of what there is in the world to statements formulated with social concepts being
true.

THE NATURE OF SOCIAL REALITY z55

the conditions under which the individualist facts, in which the truth of
*. ., In consists, hold.

The first thing to note about Mandelbaum's argument is that it does not
show what he claims it does. Suppose we grant that reducing S, for what-
ever specific reasons, presupposes further social facts; presupposes, that
is, the employment of further social statements. This being so, even itera-
tively so, however, does not show that social facts are something distinct
from and equally as ultimate as individualist (i.e., psychological) facts. It
shows only that we must presuppose the existence of whatever it is in the
end in which the truth of social statements consists; and thus it leaves
open the nature and status of what this is. Hence, the first thing to learn
from Mandelbaum's argument is that, contrary to what many writers
have assumed, the mere fact that we must presuppose social facts does not
imply that we must countenance the existence of any category of facts
other than individualist facts, i.e., the existence of anything in the world
beyond that in which the truth of individualist statements consists. The
question becomes: What type of entity is it in which the truth of social
statements consists?
Social statements are statements concerning social reality. If such state-
ments are true, consequently, what there is in the world to their being true
must be features of that reality. On my account of social reality, however,
which incidentally, was developed independently of any considerations
pertaining specifically to social statements or to truth, social reality con-
sists in interrelated ongoing lives. It follows that what there is in reality to
any social statement's being true are particular features of interrelated
lives. Hence, social facts, that in which the truth of social statements con-
sists, are n-tuples of actions, intelligibility-determining factors, entities in
settings, and interrelations. But individualist facts, that in which the truth
of individualist statements consists, also are elements and interrelations.
Thus social facts are made up solely of the same phenomena as individual-
ist facts are. That in which the truth of social statements consists is made
up of that in which the truth of individualist statements consists. Accord-
ing to the terms of Mandelbaum's claims, consequently, social facts are
reducible to individualist facts. Social facts are not facts of a type irreduc-
ible to and equally as ultimate as individualist facts, but instead are collec-
tions of individualist facts. What we commit ourselves to in using true
social statements are combinations of individualist facts, combinations
which we call 'social facts'. Thus, in the sense of 'reduction' specified ear-
lier, it follows that social statements are reducible to sets of individualist
statements.

z56 THEODORE R. SCHATZKI

 Notice that, on my account, the range of the individual is broader than
Mandelbaum presumes. A prominent feature of his argument is that it
restricts the set of reducing concepts to what he calls 'psychological' con-
cepts: concepts of either overt behavior or thoughts. (Overt behavior is far
more important than thoughts; cf. the example on page I14.) This is cer-
tainly too narrow a base on which to construct an individualist social
ontology.'9 In order for social statements to be reducible to individualist
statements (i.e., for social facts to be reducible to individualist facts), we
must expand the range of reducing concepts to include (i) those describ-
ing entities in the settings of action, (z) those describing intelligibility-
determining factors other than ideas and states of affairs (e.g., ends, rules,
mattering, paradigms, and customs), and (3) those describing interrela-
tions between lives. 'John is a bank teller' is equivalent not to a set of state-
ments concerning John's thoughts and actions, but to a set of statements
concerning (a) what John and others with whom he interacts do, (b) enti-
ties that mold the intelligibility governing their behavior and entities
toward which and out of an understanding of which they act, (c) the full
range of factors determining the intelligibility governing their behavior,
and (d) certain interrelations between their lives and between their lives
and those of others. So a second lesson to learn from Mandelbaum's argu-
ment is that the individualist level must not be limited to behavior and
thoughts alone.
Before continuing my argument, it might be useful if I briefly illustrate
what reductions of social facts can look like on my account. I will consider
a social fact involving normativity, since social facts of this type might be
thought to escape my analysis. Suppose that it is a fact about John's world
that customers who have large accounts are to be treated with special
politeness. In what sort of n-tuple of actions, factors, entities, and interre-
lations might this fact consist? It could consist in certain explicitly formu-
lated directives and rules that bank employees are ordered or coerced to
follow. If so, then the state of the world in which the truth of 'customers
who have large accounts are to be treated with special politeness' consists
would be the issuing and reiteration of these directives. It might be the
case, however, that there are no explicit bank rules concerning the treat-
ment of rich customers and that, instead, it is simply a custom among
John's people to treat rich people in all service situations with special
politeness, where its being a "custom" means not only that this is (statisti-

'9 Those methodological individualists, therefore, who try to reduce social phenomena to
beliefs, concepts, and actions have chosen far too narrow a basis for reduction. See, e.g.,
F. A. von Hayek, The Counter-Revolution of Science, op. cit., chapter 4. As noted, this
is also more or less Schutz' position; cf. The Theory of Social Action, op. cit., pp. 56-57.

THE NATURE OF SOCIAL REALITY 257

cally) how people act but also that, when people act in a contrary fashion,
they are admonished, fired, thrown rude glances, and so on. If so, then
what there is in the world to its being true that customers with large
accounts are to be treated especially politely is this custom (including the
corrective behavior that is part of it). And in either case, even if John flouts
the rules or the custom and regularly acts rudely toward rich customers,
his behavior does not alter the fact that these rules are issued and reiter-
ated or that this custom exists and that, as a result, it is true of John's
world that rich customers are to be treated with special politeness. In the
real world, of course, facts of the sort under discussion are combinations
of bank-specific directives, bank behavior customs, and general social
customs.
Now, as indicated, Mandelbaum argues that any attempt to specify
what there is in the world to a social statement's being true presupposes
further social facts. As an extension of this argument, he might point out
that among the facts in which, on my sort of analysis, the truth of 'John is
a bank teller' consists are John's thought that this person is a customer
and this person's thought that John is a surly bank employee. These facts
are individualist facts (since they are that in which the truth of 'John
thinks something about this person' and 'This person thinks something
about John' consists). What the individuals involved think of, however, is
formulated with social concepts. The analysis thus employs further social
concepts in specifying the individualist facts in which the truth of 'John is
a bank teller' consists. From Mandelbaum's viewpoint, this means that
this analysis presupposes further social facts. For social concepts refer to
social facts."0The reduction, consequently, is unsuccessful.
I believe that an argument highly similar to the one presented four para-
graphs back shows that what there is in the world to the social phenomena
expressed by social concepts are collections of elements and interrela-
tions. Social concepts refer, in other words, to combinations of individu-
alist facts, not to facts of a type irreducible to and equally as ultimate as
individualist facts. In what follows, however, I want to discuss a different
reason why the use of social concepts in the specification of individualist
facts does not entail the irreducibility of social facts to individualist facts.

See ibid., p. io9. In the latter part of the current paragraph and the first part of the next, I
construe the fact to which a concept 'refers' as what there is in the world to the phenom-
enon expressed by the concept. The social facts to which social concepts 'refer,' accord-
ingly, are what there is in the world to the social phenomena expressed by these concepts.
Beginning then in the last sentence of the next paragraph, the expression 'social facts'
means what it has hitherto.

Z5 8 THEODORE R. SCHATZKI
 It might be claimed in response to Mandelbaum that the presence of
social concepts in the formulation of actors' thoughts shows only that the
reduction is not yet complete. I will not argue this, however, because I do
not believe that it is possible to eliminate social concepts from the rosters
of individualist facts in which social facts consist. Mandelbaum is right
that additional social concepts always appear in the specification of the
individualist facts in which the truth of a social statement consists. But the
ineliminability of social concepts from the analysis of social facts does not
entail that collections of individualist facts cannot be what there is in the
world to social statements being true. Ineliminability of concepts and
reducibility of facts are compatible if social concepts are part of individu-
alist facts. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that social facts are reduc-
ible to individualist facts, and imagine that among the individualist facts
constituting the truth of, e.g., 'John is a bank teller' is his thought that this
person is a customer. (One can suppose, further, that any analysis of the
thought that this person is a customer invokes further thoughts formu-
lated with other social concepts.) This thought is an individualist fact.
Since a social concept occurs in it, however, this concept will appear in its
formulation. So even though, ex hypothesi, the truth of 'John is a bank
teller' consists in a set of individualist facts, any attempt to formulate the
latter facts will employ further social concepts. Hence, the ineliminability
of social concepts in the analysis of social facts is compatible with the
reducibility of social facts.
Now, on my account, as explained, social facts are nothing but collec-
tions of elements of and interrelations between ongoing lives. Social con-
cepts, moreover, are part of many elements and interrelations. For many
intelligibility-determining factors, actions, and interrelations are formu-
lated or identified with social concepts, and social concepts often appear
in settings, e.g., on signs. This state of affairs can be oversimply and for-
mulaically stated as follows; many social facts consist (in part) of people
acting from out of the understanding of and thus as directed by social con-
cepts. But this means that whenever, as is usually the case, the elements
and interrelations that are given social fact contain social concepts as
parts; that is, whenever a given social fact consists at least partially in peo-
ple acting from out of the understanding of social concepts, then further
social concepts will necessarily appear in the specification of the elements
and interrelations that make up the social fact in question. These further
social concepts will be those that are components of the elements and
interrelations constituting this social fact; that is, the concepts the under-
standing of which is part of this social fact."' Elements and interrelations,

Sometimes a social concept will appear in the analysis of that in which the truth of a state-

THE NATURE OF SOCIAL REALITY z59

however, also are individualist facts. Thus the social fact in question is
reducible to individualist facts, even though identifying the latter will uti-
lize social concepts. This state of affairs will occur, as indicated, whenever
the elements and interrelations in which social facts consist contain social
concepts as parts.
So a third lesson to be learned from Mandelbaum's argument is that the
ineliminability of social concepts from the analysis of social facts does not
entail the irreducibility of social facts to individualist facts. In fact, if one
adopts my conception of social reality and correspondingly expands the
sense of 'individualist' to embrace intelligibility, setting, and interrela-
tions, and thus the concepts and social concepts that guide people's lives,
then the very ineliminability of social concepts is explained by the reduc-
ibility of social facts to individualist facts. The ineliminability of social
concepts, therefore, is no bar to viewing social facts as sets of elements of
and interrelations between individual lives.
So, to sum up, social reality is the concrete reality of actual social life.
Since this concrete reality, in turn, consists in interrelated ongoing lives,
all social phenomena and facts must have their being in features of the
nexus of lives. In the present essay, I have been concerned solely with pre-
senting these ideas. Thus I cannot explore further the consequences my
account of social reality holds for issues in social theory and the philoso-
phy of social science. This I will do in ensuing papers, arguing, for
instance, that functional, structural, and systems-theoretical explanations
of social phenomena are illegitimate."

ment formulated with it consists. What there is in the world to 'John is a bank teller' being
true, for instance, includes John's understanding that he himself is a bank teller.
I would like to thank Hubert Dreyfus, members of the Department of Philosophy at
Columbia University, and an anonymous referee for comments on this essay.

260 THEODORE R. SCHATZKI