This short treatise looks at how we construct a social reality from our sense impressions; at how, for example, we construct a "five-pound note" with all that implies in terms of value and social meaning, from the printed piece of paper we see and touch.

John Searle is the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. He was awarded the Jean Nicod Prize in 2002 and the National Humanities Medal in 2004.