A Study On Searle’s Theory Of Collective Intentionality

In recent years, with in-depth survey of speech acts, people pay more attention to the basic philosophicalissues behind speech acts, which subsume the philosophy of language into the philosophy of mind. John Searle,a famous philosopher from United State, is the first one who brought the concept”intentionality” into histheory of language. Searle emphasized that intentionality is the foundation of language and the basiccharacteristics of speech acts. Then he believed that intentionality is the intersection of the philosophy of mindand philosophy of language. Moreover, Searle expanded this study which combines philosophy of languageand philosophy of mind into a social theory on the construction of social reality. In this theory of socialconstructions, he introduced three necessary conceptual tools: the collective intentionality, the assignment offunctions and the constitutive rules. Collective intentionality is the most important span on the bridge whichconnects the physical world and the society.Collective intentionality is one of the focus and priority issues in the theory of intentionality. It plays animportant role in the interpretation of social constructions, social actions and social facts. Searle broughtcollective intentionality into social philosophy, and considered it as the presupposition of his theory of socialreality. He assumed that collective intentionality is also the basic form of intentionality as individualintentionality. If intentionality is an essential element to study individual actions, then collective intentionalityis an essential element to study social actions with collectivity. Therefore, Searle’s theory of collectiveintentionality plays an important role in the modern society.My study is on the basis of the predecessors’ researches. I intend to begin with the source and meaning ofintentionality theory to tease and discuss the main views, importance, limitations of Searle’s collectiveintentionality theory and the relationship with social construction slightly to more clear to understand theconcept and connotation of collective intentionality. My goal is to better to aware the important role ofSearle’s collective intentionality theory in contemporary researches on the philosophy of society andphilosophy of action and its actual significance today.