An interpersonal act that generates real obligations and claims which cannot be derived from convention, positive law, or psychological dispositions. Reinach showed that social acts generate mind-independent states of affairs: they are not ascribed, but are grounded in the nature of the things themselves (cf. Bexten 2017, pp. 198 ff.).
The social act is at once personal act and archphenomenon. As an archphenomenon it is irreducible. The obligation that arises from a promise cannot be traced back to psychological states, social conventions, or positive law. Reinach’s groundbreaking insight was that a promise generates an objective obligation that is independent of the factual will of those involved — an a priori legal formation.
Social acts presuppose interpersonality. They are essentially directed toward a counterpart and can only be performed between persons. In every social act the acting person recognizes the other as a person — as someone who can have claims and take on obligations. The social act thereby reveals the personal fundamental structure of community. Human coexistence is grounded not in power relations or utility calculations, but in personal encounter.
The speech act is a special form of the social act: in language the person turns to a counterpart and thereby creates an interpersonal space that is subject to the duty of truth. The lie perverts the social act by destroying the structure of trust underlying interpersonal communication.
The responsibility that arises from social acts is not merely moral but ontological: it is grounded in the nature of the act itself and exists independently of whether those involved acknowledge it.
Ontological classification:
- Superordinate concepts: Personal Act, Archphenomenon
- Subordinate concept: Promise
Chapter assignment: Chapter 4: What Is Human Personhood? (German)
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology. Bexten 2017, pp. 260, 264 (social act and action).
Further sources:
- Reinach, Adolf: Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes (1913). (social acts and a priori legal formations)