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Today, we are going to discuss Searle’s notion of language and meaning. Language according
to Searle is a biological phenomenon. It has evolved in this sense that, as you all know
Searle presupposes two scientific theories: one is evolutionary biology and the other
is the atomic theory of matter. Following this scientific presupposition Searle argues
that intentionality is a pre linguistic feature whereas, language is a later evolute. Language
is not prior to intentionality. In this sense Searle tries to talk about the concept of
language and linguistic activities. He tries to show that the language-world relationship
is an intentional relationship; it is govern by the principle of intentionality; the intentional
attitude of language use is seen as a kind of social phenomenon, language use is a kind
of social activity. Now this social activity presupposes that there is a mind and this
mind is intentional and the intentional feature of mind not only articulates the linguistic
expressions, but also tries to show how meaning is embedded in the intentional structure of
mental states. It is a in this connection that Searle’s
tries to tell us that the language-world relationship, the sense-reference relationship, the content
and reference relationship are intentionally defined. Searle of course, tells us that this
intentional connection between language and the world is a causal connection.
So, in this case one does not understand that the causal connection that Searle is talking
about is like the causal connection that Fodor and Chomsky would talk about. Since Searle’s
talks about mental causations and these mental causations are internationalized in the case
of biological naturalism, we need to see how Searle explains to us the language-world relationship.
In this context I would like to talk about Searle’s notion of language. From evolutionary
point of view there is an order of priority. It is this priority that I was talking about:
how intentionality evolves and then we find the evolution of language. Intentionality
is prior to language, priority in the development of biological processes. So, there is an order
of priority in the development of intentional phenomena.
If language is embedded in the structure of mental states or intentional states then,
this structuring looks for a kind of logical priority or the structuring demands a kind
of biological priority in order to show how intentionality helps in explaining the structure.
In the development of language and meaning comes very late.
According to Searle human being is a linguistic being. Human being is a conscious being, a
biological being. All these features of the individual human beings are something that
is unique. Intentionality is not unique in the case of
a biological human being. The biological system produces intentional features. If that is
the hypothesis then, all biological entities have intentionality. Intentionality is the
intrinsic feature of consciousness, or as an intrinsic feature of human mind, is a common
feature to all biological beings. But human intentionality is different from animal intentionality,
from the intentionality of plants and insects. You would see that in our later lectures.
What is important today is to talk about that when we say that language and world are intentionally
connected, we would just like to tell ourselves that this relationship presupposes intentionality.
In that sense we need to see how intentionality helps us in explaining the structure of mental
states and its linguistic features and relationship with the world. Since meaning is the part
of mind, according to Searle this relationship, the relationship between meaning and mind
has to be understood very carefully. Precisely because, for him language is one of the basic
institutions that human intentionality has formed and it is through the language or the
linguistic content, the intentional content we relate how it is part of experience and
understanding. Meaning is not there in the mind. I said meaning is related to experience
and understanding and therefore, it is related to the mental life. There is an internal relationship
found in the case of Searle’s analysis of the meaning. In that context when we talk
about linguistic activities, the activities which are characterized as the mental activities,
what we try to show is that linguistic activities say for example, thinking, desiring, intending
etcetera are part of experience and understanding.
In that sense there is an internal connection. Intentionality, as we have discussed earlier
is a feature of directedness. We have also pointed out in the last session that, Searle
talks about two different kinds of representations: the mental representation in one hand and
the linguistic representation in the other. But Searle tries to show us that language
is connected, in a sense connected to the mind. This connection as I said it is an intentional
connection. To say that what kind of representation happens when talk about language use we say
there is a linguistic representation. When we say that the structure of linguistic representation
and the structure of mental states are connected and these structures are in some sense symmetrical
in nature then that is precisely because the intentional content of these structures are
same. When we say I am thinking or the thought,
a particular thought or a mental state like a desire to have a glass of water: this having
a glass of water would talk about or the want to have glass of water would talk about, how
this thought is being expressed in language. When I express this in language I certainly
convey meaning to you. The expression conveys meaning to the hearer. If the contents are
different then what I think and what I say will not match.
Due to the mismatch between the thinking and saying or expressing the desire there will
be chaos. Searle tries to tell us that the content is expressed in language and this
intentional content is a pre linguistic phenomenon and it is expressed in language. So, language
for Searle is an institution. It is one of the institutions. There are several institutions
like family is an institution, governance is another institution. Now all these institutions
are formed by certain rules and Searle says that these are constitutive rules.
The constitutive rules have a kind of logical form that is x. X is defined as y in the context
c. In other words, we try to see x as y in a particular context. I will come back to
that point, when Searle’s talks about two different kinds of rules that govern our linguistic
activities: one is the constitutive rules and the other is the regulative rules. But,
before that we need to be very clear that the realm of the mental and realm of the linguistic
are two different realms. Searle therefore, talks about the communicative intention, the
intention to share the meaning. That is, what is being intended by the speaker is different
from the mere intention of expression. There are two things one is, in the case of
a linguistic representation. A mere linguistic representation minus communicative intention
is something very insignificant when it talks about language use. Say for example, when
I am walking on the street and there is nobody around I just say something. If I say that
I want a glass of water very loudly it will make no sense because I am not intending to
communicate to somebody that I want a glass of water or rather I am just loudly speaking
out my thought. But if there is somebody, there is a hearer around me or there is a
possibility that somebody would hear my desire and I am feeling very thirsty and I also expect
that he would response to my expression, then that kind of state of affairs will talk about
what Searle calls a communicative intention. The communicative intention and the representational
intention are two different kinds of intentions. The intentionality which is embedded in the
structure of thought or mind is a kind of intentionality which only has representational
intention. It has a representational intention whereas; in the case of intention to communicate
things would talk about the communicative intention. So, the intentionality operates
in two different realms.
So, there are two aspects of meaning intention. Communicating according to Searle is a matter
of producing effect on one’s hearer. But one can intend to represent something without
caring at all about the effects of the hearer. This is a very significant remark where, Searle
tries to tell us that the desire to communicate something is significant and it is significant
in sense that it shows how I must behave in a social, in a public space. Whereas if I
say that I am just thinking, I need not express my thought. A mere thinking would talk about
a kind of intention which Searle’s calls as the representation intentions, where I
am not really thinking of the possibility of sayings certain things to others. I am
ruling out the possibilities; I am just thinking. So, there that is also possible. But the moment
I try to speak out my thoughts I am very much consciously involved in saying, but I am thinking
and I must mean what I say.
That connection between saying and meaning it is a very important intentional connection
that Searle is referring to. Searle further says that we define speaker’s meaning in
terms of forms of intentionality that are not intrinsically linguistic. If for example,
we can define meaning in terms of intentions we will be defining a linguistic notion, even
though many perhaps most human intentions are linguistically realized. All human intentions
are linguistically realized. They are linguistically in the sense, when you talk about the realizations
we must understand what a mental state is and what are the other mental states that
it is connected to.
Say for an example I have a desire. This desire is connected to various other desires. This
desire say desire one is connected to desire three or it is related to some kind of a belief.
This is a kind of criss-crossing relationship and that kind of a network, what Searle means
is, you might have seen in his book The Intentionality- An essay in philosophy of a mind, the book
that I am referring to is this talks about the network of mental states. Searle makes
a distinction between network and background. Background is a non representational power
or ability, a non representational mental ability. Whereas the mind or the mental life
includes various mental states: various kinds of mental states though we mostly refer to
desire, believes, intentions etcetera. But there are several other kinds of mental states
which are intentionally connected to one another. This intentional connection or whatever Searle
calls there is a conceptual connection. In this network of mental states, I have already
mentioned in my previous lectures that some mental states are unconscious mental states
and some are conscious. Say for example, I am conscious of this desire to have a glass
of water. If I am conscious of this and I am present not conscious of other kinds of
desire I have, what Searle says is this that all the other desires that I am not conscious
of now are potentially conscious mental states. This idea that, to have desire and to express
that desire and also believe that somebody would bring a glass of water, there is a possibility
that somebody would bring me a glass of water. I believe that there is a hearer who would
hear and would listen to my expression and bring a glass of water to me. So, I believe,
the speaker believes certain things. That is why he is intended to speak or express
a desire. So, the intention of the expressing the desire
is something which talks about believes. There are several believes. I believe that there
is a glass or there is a pot, and the hearer would go rush to the pot. Or there is a pond
the hearer would rush to the pond fill the pot, fill the glass and bring it to me. So,
there is hell of lot of know possibilities. Possible believes are connected. So, there
is a network of mental states. And one mental state is realized with relation to various
other mental states. In that sense, the linguistic realisability is connected to the mental.
As you remember Searle’s basic hypothesis is that mental states are caused by brain
processes and realized in brain processes. So, whenever something is being caused that
is where it also creates a kind of possibility for realizing that. So, Searle is very particular
about this. Searle is very explicitly mentioning this to us.
On this approach the philosophy of language is a branch of philosophy of mind. This is
one segment we need to be a little clear about. When Searle wrote speech acts in late sixties,
he made it very clear that philosophy of action is a branch of philosophy of language. And
speech act is a special kind of act, is a special kind of action: to say something is
to perform an action. he is saying that philosophy of language is the branch philosophy branch
of mind. So, he is connecting three things: action, language, mind. then one can read
further into this quotation and in its most general form it amounts to the view that certain
fundamental notions such as meaning are analyzable in terms of more psychological notion such
as believes, desires and intentions. So, meaning is not exclusively a kind of a
social phenomenon. It is also related to the mind. Hence there are many psychological states
that are involved and they are involved in producing the expression and realizing that.
I did not talk about the background. The background is an ability, is a power to cause the representation.
It is through background that the mind is able to represent things. So, mental states
are representational in this way because there is a non representational ability.
Background is a not in itself representational, but it makes representation possible. According
to Searle this background capacity or ability is there in our head. He does not characterize
it as a mentor. He says it is a kind of a biological ability; it is a kind of a dispositional
ability. But I must tell you this that he is not a behaviorist: saying that mental states
can be define in terms of dispositions. But he says it is there in every biological being
the every power to represent certain thing; power to do certain things. It is that biological
power, for Searle, is a kind of a non representational power which makes the representation possible.
So, the possibility of forming the network of mental states or representational states
is possible due to a background condition. Then Searle of course, says that background
is not only physical, but there is a cultural background particularly in the intentionality
book.
Now let us further talk about the structure of intention and expressions. Intentional
states expressed in the performance that is the intention to perform that. So, what is
important for us today is that there is speaker intend to speak.
So, the intention to speak something or intention to express something talks about how the structure
is formed. So, there is an intentional structure formed here when we talk about the intentionality
of saying and meaning it or performing a kind of speech act. When you talk about speech
act or expressions we must say how these expressions are intentionally structured. The intentional
states are representational states and these representational states: say p is an intentional
state and p will have some content in it, being an intentional state must have content.
The content which expresses that it is about something. If p has an intentional content,
it is that content which refers to the reference or which signifies that a reference or establishes
a kind of a connection with the reference. So, in that sense there is a structure involved.
I have already talked about in the symmetry in the structure. Let me read out to you one
of the quotations from Searle’s Intentionality. He says “The fact that condition of satisfaction
of the expressed intentional states and the condition of speech act are identical suggests
that the key of the problem of meaning is to see that in the performance of speech act
the mind intentionally imposes the condition of satisfaction of the mental states as the
production of physical phenomena.” So, speaking is a physical activity. But the
intention to speak, the very desire to express: when I say desire has a intentionality I must
tell you this that when I use this term intentionality which is a very technical term I have already
expressed earlier that intention; desires; believes all these mental states have intentionality.
Intentionality is a feature; intentionality means directedness.
So, the desire to have water has a kind of directedness. When it is expressed, it is
expressed is a kind of a physical action, but there is a mode in which a particular
statement is being made and Searle calls it the psychological mode. The psychological
mode talks about the condition of satisfaction. So, there is a not only a kind of a directedness
involved between an expression or a proposition having a content, but there is also a kind
of a psychological mode in which a particular statement is told is expressed to the hearer.
And that is what brings, what Searle calls, the condition of satisfaction.
The condition of satisfaction talks about how statement is to be match. Say for example,
if I am making a request then I would say ‘please can you bring a glass of water to
me’ and if I give an order ‘please bring me a glass of water’ or I just say ‘give
me a glass of water’ things like that. Now the tone, the way a statement is made according
to Searle is very important to analysis the concept of meaning. Because there is an hearer
who would respond to these statements; who is connected to what you are expecting,
If I feel that if I give an order the hearer will not listen then I need to be polite and
make a kind of request: ‘please’. But if I am giving an order I have this sense
of authority with me that yes: say for example, in the court the judge says ‘order’. It
is enough to suggest that silence is to be maintained. It is that kind of authority.
The speaker demands some kind of statues or maintains some kind of status. And the authority
is imposed in the expression or in the performing of a kind of an act: just hammering the table
or saying ‘order’ is enough for judge to express that silence is to be maintained
in the court room. So, in that sense we are imposing a kind of a condition of satisfaction.
It is not just having directedness, but there is a condition of satisfaction involved in
it.
There is another notion which is being very typical to language use particularly, the
notion of meaning is that the notion of self referentiality.
Searle says when you say certain things, saying would tell us
how there is a kind of direction of fit from mind to the world called the mind to the world
direction of fit and for it is a self referential kind of thing then there will be world to
the mind. Mind to the world and world to the mind. Bring
a glass of water or please bring me a glass of water would reach to the hearer and there
is a kind of a thing happening. It brings out some kind of change in the existing state
of affairs: somebody rushes to the pot and gets me a glass of water. So, when the hearer
fetches a glass of water for me there is a world to mind direction. There is an intentional
connection between the world to the mind. This is what Searle calls self referential
connection. So, the direction fit is in two ways: one
mind to the world and the other world to the mind.
So, once that kind of intentional connections are possible then we talk about self referentiality
of intentionality. Linguistic activities are conscious activities in this sense because
they have been consciously realized. When you say you expect. When this expectation
is fulfilled you have, what you call, satisfaction. We experience the satisfaction by consuming
the glass of water and somebody just. That is what is being the case where linguistic
activities are conscious activities, because you not only say something, but you also mean
it and you realize what you have said.
But as I pointed out earlier there is also a kind of social structure in which meaning
is placed. The social meaning structure signifies the social institution of intentionality:
say for example, how a request is to be made.
When you talk about request or order, all these requests has to be made in a particular
way. There is a manner in which request is to be pointed out; there is a manner in which
request is to be expressed. This art of expression or expressing something according to Searle
is a rule governed activity. How are these rules formed? Searle talks about constitutive
rules and regulative rules. How the rules are formed: the basic thing
is that Searle says a rule is formed with the help of intentionality. What kind of intentionality?
A rule is not formed by only one individual’s intentionality rather it is formed by collective
intentionality. Every condition, request or promise how a
promise statement has to be made: this tells us that human intentionality is very fundamental
and basic to the formation of constitutive rules which says x, where we understand x
as y in the context c. A particular expression has to be understood in the form of say request
or order in a particular context. That is the specialty and that can happen at the kind
of social realm. It is that normative condition that makes an expression, request; that makes
an expression, order. The form of request, the form of order is
normatively different. They are two different forms in the sense that the way they have been articulated is different. The
way the request is been articulated; the way order is being articulated; the way promise
is being articulated are in three different ways. The forms of these expressions are decided
with the help of a collective intentionality. I will speak about collective intentionality
and what kind of ontology the social will have: if language is a kind of social institution
what kind of an ontology language use will have, that we will discuss. Searle has very
profound things to tell us about the notion of social ontology.
But as far as language is concerned he says that social meaning structure signifies the
social institution of intentionality. That is, how internationalities operating in the
social realm, that is important. The pre linguistic form of intentionality refers to the background:
that is how the background is making things possible.
When you talk about rules and following the rules: once the rules are made than the rules
are having certain power. That is the regulative power of the rules. All rules have certain
regulative power. When an individual follows a rule he follows his unconsciously. Meaning
thereby, Searle is very Wittgensteinian in this sense that I just follow the rule, that
is to say this is how I use language; this is how promise is made; this is how the request
is made. I have been a part of the social I know that this is how things are. That is
the kind of unconsciously following the rules. It is natural that we express promise in this
way or request in this way. It is natural that we express promise in a
particular manner and a request in another manner. In that sense Searle says rules are
unconsciously followed. When we do not assume or interpret that there are rules in the mind
and these rules are in unconscious mind and one is following the rules.
Searle thesis does not make that kind of clean. Rather he would tell you this, that we have
learned the social etiquettes and so many varieties of language use being part of the
linguistic community. This very fact that human beings have a linguistic form of life
shows how these rules are formed. The very fact that human beings have a linguistic
form of life and they participate in various linguistics forms of life tells us how these
rules are formed. When we explain this, Searle says this question can be answered with references
to the notion of collective intentionality. How individuals together have formed culture;
how these individuals together have formed many normative principles that make the culture
possible. In that sense he is talking about a logical possibility of formulating various
constitutive rules. It is logically possible, precisely because
the human consciousness tries to see things as something. X can be viewed as something
in a particular context. This very possibility of imagining certain things in a particular
context as something gives us an impression of making constitutive rules.
In that sense Searle’s talks about how the constitutive rules are formed and language
is expressed and used in a social context. We will talk more about it in the next session.
Thank you.