A Study Of The Intentionality In Searle’s Speech Acts

Studying the problem of intentionality research is concerned by many philosophers, especially by the philosophers about speech analysis. Searle is one of the typical representatives of them:"the problem of intentionality links the two most central problems in the contemporary philosophy:First,’how is the language associated with the practice’(This is the problem which all of the philosophers concern)? Second,’what is the nature of human’s behavior? What is the interpretation of an action? Why the method of science is not possible to achieve the successful result in the study of human’s behavior?’ The two common problems are merged into the problem of intentionality." From Searle’s opinion, intentionality is the premise expressing in a complete speech act. The speaker conveys his or her meaning through the intentionality of verbal behaviors, in other words, intentionality is the essence which is constructed by a perfect speech, and it also has a deep relationship with the perfect speech. Although people can communicate with each other with language or limb and transmit information with symbols or tools, it is not just because they contain some significance or they have the intentionality.The article is divided into three parts to elaborate:The first chapter mainly describes historical progress on the problem of intentionality, elaborates in detail from simple inquiry of intentionality in ancient Greece to the proposing of Searle’s problem of intentionality, and understands the basic developing progress on the problem of intentionality completely.The second chapter is the focus of this paper. It mainly comprehensively analyses the basic content on the problem of intentionality in Searle’s speech acts, specifies Searle’s theory of intentionality to transcendence and establish of predecessor’s theories, analyses the relations between Searle’s speech acts and social practice, and grasps Searle’s problem of intentionality from the fundamental significance. The third chapter mainly elaborates uniqueness and theoretical significance of Searle’s problem of intentionality, including collective intentionality, the social reality, and adscription of intentionality on naturalistic position. It also analyzes the deficiencies about Searle’s problem of intentionality, and points out the values and significance on Searle’s theory of intentionality. Finally, it is the conclusion.