Böcker av John R. Searle

This is a formal and systematic study of the logical foundations of speech act theory.

John Searle's Speech Acts (1969) and Expression and Meaning (1979) developed a highly original and influential approach to the study of language. But behind both works lay the assumption that the philosophy of language is in the end a branch of the philosophy of the mind: speech acts are forms of human action and represent just one example of the mind's capacity to relate the human organism to the world. The present book is concerned with these biologically fundamental capacities, and, though third in the sequence, in effect it provides the philosophical foundations for the other two. Intentionality is taken to be the crucial mental phenomenon, and its analysis involves wide-ranging discussions of perception, action, causation, meaning, and reference. In all these areas John Searle has original and stimulating views. He ends with a resolution of the 'mind-body' problem.

This book takes up just the problems that perplex people and does what good philosophy always does: it dispels the illusion caused by the specious collision of truths. How to reconcile common sense and science? Searle argues that the truths of common sense and the truths of science are both right; the only question is how to fit them together.

Written in an outstandingly clear and lively style, this 1969 book provokes its readers to rethink issues they may have regarded as long since settled.