Status Functions

Status functions, which organize much of our thinking about the social world, are functions that objects, events, and agents have in social transactions that they can perform only by those involved collectively accepting them as having those functions, in contrast to a hammer or a chair, which can fulfill their functions simply in virtue of their physical constitution. Examples of status functions being a $10 bill and being a pawn, or rook, etc., in a game of chess. This chapter introduces the concept of a status function through John Searle's pioneering account which holds that collective accepting a status function is accepting a constitutive rule. It explains what a constitutive rule is according to Searle, discusses some features of status functions, and then identifies a tension between two claims Searle makes about constitutive rules.