The promise is the paradigmatic social act: it generates a reciprocal relation of claim and obligation. Whoever promises binds themselves — and generates in the other a legitimate claim to fulfillment. This structure is not a product of social convention but an essential law: the a priori connection between promise and obligation holds independently of any positive legal order.
Adolf Reinach, in his groundbreaking analysis of social acts, showed that the promise generates its own ontological reality. With the performance of the promise, a new relation arises between two persons. The promisor has an obligation, the recipient has a claim. This relation is not physical, but real. It can be fulfilled, broken, annulled, or transferred. Reinach’s analysis discloses a priori legal structures grounded in the nature of social acts themselves.
The promise presupposes freedom: only a free being can bind itself. At the same time it presupposes interpersonality. A promise is directed at another person. It is essentially an act between persons. The promise thus exemplifies what constitutes the second dimension of personhood. The person does not exist in isolation, but in relation to others. These relations have their own reality and normativity.
The breaking of a promise is not simply a social faux pas, but a violation of the objective order of personal relations. It disregards the legitimate claim of the other person and undermines the trust that sustains every personal community.
Ontological classification
- Superordinate concept: Social Act
Ontological relations:
- is a subclass of: Social Act
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology. Bexten 2017, pp. 309–322 (social acts, promising, and a priori legal structures in the context of interpersonality).
Further sources:
- Reinach, Adolf (1913): Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes. In: Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung 1 (the promise as a social act with an a priori legal structure).
See also
- Chapter 4: Personhood (German)
- Natural Law