One way of asserting that P, it seems, is overtly to manifest my commitment to P, and indeed commitment of a particular kind: commitment to defend P in response to challenges of the form, "How do you know that?" I must also overtly manifest my liability to be either right or wrong on the issue of P depending on whether P is the case.
"Furthermore," she wrote, "when partners manifest the commitment to their relationship and family, by solemnizing that commitment elsewhere, through one of life's most significant events, and come to New York, whether returning home or setting down roots, to carry on that commitment, nothing is more antithetical to family stability than requiring them to abandon that solemnized commitment".
Dianne, the chief businesswoman, for instance, wants Shannyn, the spa director, to get her teeth fixed, even though Shannyn has already made manifest her commitment to the corporate cause by upgrading her bra size to a point that leaves her suitable only for a very limited number of work environments.
For instance, two traveling companions make manifest their commitment to keep track of one another, whereas two people who happen to share a seat on a train do not.
It may manifest as commitment struggles for me, friendships with toxic people for someone else, a need to always be right for another person.
By contrast, I conjecture P by overtly manifesting my commitment to P in this same "liability to error" way, but I am not committed to responding to challenges demanding justification.
It manifests a commitment to ecological and social health that shifts what are frequently seen as marginal concerns to core business principles, a move that effectively supports sustainable economic growth.
What is missing from Searle's characterization is the notion of overtness: The agent in question must not only make her intention to undertake a certain commitment manifest; she must also intend that that very intention be manifest.
Every aspect of that is public-service oriented, but I think we need to be self-conscious about it, and that self consciousness depends on having a manifest and visible commitment to service and civic engagement.
Not only was similar commitment manifest in the way he lived out his Christianity (he converted to Catholicism when he was a young man) and in the tireless way in which he opposed racism in all its forms, there was even evidence of it in his recreational interest in the history of card games.
In an era in which technology, mobility, and mass communication have tended to create a composite national culture, Mississippi's enduring sense of place and history has been manifest in its commitment to the preservation of its historic landmarks, artifacts, and furnishings of the past.
