John Searle's Speech Acts (1969) and Expression and Meaning (1979) developed a h
ighly original and influential approach to the study of language. But behind bot
h works lay the assumption that the philosophy of language is in the end a branc
h of the philosophy of the mind: speech acts are forms of human action and repre
sent 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 capaci
ties, 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, a
ction, causation, meaning, and reference.
