John Searle's Philosophy of Language
Force, Meaning and Mind

A volume of original essays on key aspects of Searle's philosophy of language, prefaced by John Searle himself.

Savas L. Tsohatzidis (Edited by)

9780521866279, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 18 October 2007

308 pages, 5 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.62 kg

This is a volume of original essays on key aspects of John Searle's philosophy of language. It examines Searle's work in relation to current issues of central significance, including internalism versus externalism about mental and linguistic content, truth-conditional versus non-truth-conditional conceptions of content, the relative priorities of thought and language in the explanation of intentionality, the status of the distinction between force and sense in the theory of meaning, the issue of meaning scepticism in relation to rule-following, and the proper characterization of 'what is said' in relation to the semantics/pragmatics distinction. Written by a distinguished team of contemporary philosophers, and prefaced by an illuminating essay by Searle, the volume aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of Searle's work in philosophy of language, and to suggest innovative approaches to fundamental questions in that area.

Introduction Savas L. Tsohatzidis
1. What is language: some preliminary remarks John R. Searle
Part I. From Mind to Meaning: 2. Content, mode, and self-reference François Recanati
3. Searle against the world: how can experiences find their objects? Kent Bach
4. Seeing what is there Robin Jeshion
5. Intentionalism, descriptivism, and proper names Wayne A. Davis
6. On the alleged priority of thought over language Christopher Gauker
7. Rule scepticism: Searle's criticism of Kripke's Wittgenstein Martin Kusch
Part II. From Meaning to Force: 8. How to say things with words Kepa Korta and John Perry
9. Semantics without the distinction between sense and force Stephen J. Barker
10. Dynamic discourse semantics for embedded speech acts Nicholas Asher
11. Yes-no questions and the myth of content invariance Savas L. Tsohatzidis
12. How do speech acts express psychological states? Mitchell Green.

Subject Areas: Cognitivism, cognitive theory [JMAQ], Philosophy [HP], Philosophy of language [CFA], Linguistics [CF]