Abstract

The principal aim of this article is to analyze the structure of institutional facts. These are facts whose essential part is a particular social context. The physical facts that present the background of institutional facts are called “brute facts”. In the article I define the link between them and institutional facts. I first analyze the concept of the brute fact using Elizabeth Anscombe’s article On brute facts. I discuss in detail the structure of institutional facts and define their relation to brute facts. Then I take up the analysis of the contemporary theory of institutional facts presented by John Searle in his book The Construction of Social Reality. I first distinguish between regulative and constitutive rules and analyze more closely the structure of such constitution. Next, I introduce the concept of institution which according to Searle means a particular pattern of behavior that is defined by a set of constitutive rules. In the end I take up the issue of the ontological foundation of the institution, i.e. of collective consciousness.