Abstract

The aim of this article is to highlight the contributions that Roman Ingarden could make to social ontology. In achieving this objective, I shall juxtapose his conceptual apparatus from existential ontology (Ingarden, 1947/2013, 1948/2016) with Searle’s (1995, 2010) model of theory of institutional facts. I shall define that Searle’s (1995) approach to social reality is ontologically deflationary. When referring to an ontological assumption of such a model, it becomes problematic to explain how a social entity such as a corporation exists (Smith, 2003; Smith & Searle, 2003). Consequently, he modifies his position by acknowledging that a corporation comes into being by a declaration and does not need a physical entity to continue to exist (Searle, 2010). On the grounds of his existential ontology, Ingarden distinguishes between relations (existential moments): self-sufficient and dependent. In my paper, I shall point out that this distinction allows for a more accurate description of the mode of being of social entities, such as corporations. Searle did not make such a distinction explicitly on the grounds of his naturalistic ontology. In this paper, I shall describe the mode of existence of the corporation as a purely intentional object.