Abstract
In the Introduction, I have sketched the proposal that social consciousness, as a concept inherited from Karl Marx’s historical materialism, could be reinterpreted in light of the collective intentionality hypothesis. Moreover, by understanding social consciousness as a constituent part of collective intentionality, we can reconstruct the theoretical fruits of the young Marx and develop a naturalist theory of society with respect to the “essential power” of human conscious and sensuous activities. This proposal, I believe, is helpful not only for studying social consciousness but also for studies of collective intentionality. However, before we directly apply the collective intentionality hypothesis to the reinterpretation, some explanations regarding the issue “what is the Intentionality, and how is collective intentionality brought about?” are needed. To answer these questions, a historical examination of the conception of Intentionality is necessary.
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Notes
- 1.
An introduction to Husserl’s concepts of noema and epoche (or bracketing), see Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Intentionality.
- 2.
Husserl’s phenomenological method aims to eliminate any metaphysical presuppositions between true and false, real and fictitious. Phenomenological states could be the cornerstone of our scientific system. For more on the concept of phenomenology, see also Bell (1990).
- 3.
There is, however, another interpretation according to which Frege did not ignore the importance of Intentionality. In this reading, he attempts to investigate the intentions of humans through the investigation of the logical structure of our language. See Dummett (1973). However, such an interpretation would not affect the proposal I have depicted. First, the notion of intentionality is not treated as an independent area of investigation by Frege. More importantly, Frege’s schema of the logical structure of the language is too narrow and only contains the expression or statements of meaning. The Fregean schema of language is the dogma in early analytical philosophy, which J. L. Austin comprehensively rejected.
- 4.
In Austin’s own phrase, “constative sentence” means the utterance, which has a true value in general. “Not all true or false statements are descriptions, and for this reason, I prefer to use the word ‘Constative’” (Austin 1962, p. 3).
- 5.
For the complete formulation of the conditions, see Austin (1962, pp. 14–15).
- 6.
However, it is highly controversial what exactly Austin means by making such distinction. For in the latter passages, it seems that Austin does not treat locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts as three different kinds of performance but as the different moments or aspects of a genuinely total performative sentence. Austin says, “in general the locutionary act as much as the illocutionary is an abstraction only: every genuine speech act is both” (ibid., p. 146). However, if we choose this interpretation, advocating that there is no speech act that can be solely labeled as locutionary or illocutionary, the following problem arises, namely, that Austin lacks a clear elucidation of the genuine speech act. His distinction is merely classifying speech acts into abstract conceptions that are empty and unreal. For further discussion, see also Cerf (1966, pp. 262–285).
- 7.
This question is related to the debates on ontological attitudes toward actions. In Alvin Goldman’s view, an action “is the exemplifying of an act-property by an agent at a particular time” (Goldman 1970, p. 10ff). In this sense, a locutionary act and an illocutionary act cannot be identical actions because they do not share the identical exemplification of an act-property. In contrast, Donald Davidson asserts that actions did not entail act properties. The difference between actions and events consists of the fact that while actions can be described as intentional from within the interpreter’s perspective, events cannot. “Action does require that what the agent does is intentional under some description” (Davidson 2001, p. 50). In this sense, the same speech act could freely be described as either a locutionary or an illocutionary act because the interpretation of the agent’s intention may be different. However, in Austin’s age, the ontological study of action was in its infancy, so he did not commit himself to any ontological attitude. I will return to this issue later in Chap. 4.
- 8.
The degrading of the performative/constative distinction as a special theory of the locutionary/illocutionary distinction could be reflected in the historical development of Austin’s thought. In his essay Ifs and Cans, Austin had already started to criticize the performative/constative distinction, by which he intended to lead the doctrine of speech acts toward the formation of “a true and comprehensive science of language” (in Austin 1961, p. 180). In addition, the book How to Do Things with Acts could be regarded as the accomplishment of Austin’s efforts for such a “paradigm shift.” See also Cerf (1966).
- 9.
For further elaborations about the notion of “direction of fit” see “A Taxonomy of illocutionary Acts,” in Searle (1975, pp. 344–369).
- 10.
Imagine a starving baby who cries out for feeding. The baby definitely has a desire for food. However, its desire is not realized in language because the baby cannot form a propositional content that “I am hungry.”
- 11.
See the condition Γ in Austin’s discussion of the satisfaction of a performative sentence in Austin (1962, pp. 14–15).
- 12.
For more on the relation between meaning and intentionality, see Chapter 6: Meaning, in Searle (1983, pp. 160–179).
- 13.
For more details about Apel’s elaboration of “Linguistic turn” and “Pragmatic turn,” see Apel (1991, pp. 35–39).
- 14.
Habermas shares the same standpoint as Apel. In his critic of Searle’s Intentionality theory, Habermas rejects Searle’s notion that language is an institution that enables speakers to raise their claims. “Language, however, is an institution only in a metaphorical sense. Thus, Searle’s explanation of how performatives work reaches no further than this metaphor” (Habermas 1991, p. 28).
- 15.
- 16.
Details about Searle’s analysis of belief and desire, See Searle (1983, pp. 29–36).
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Chen, Y. (2024). From Speech Act to Intentionality. In: The Genesis and Transformation of Social Consciousness. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54419-4_2
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