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      • HARVEST
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      • Graduate Theses and Dissertations
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      • HARVEST
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      The background of Searle's "Background" : motives, anticipations, and problems

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      Date
      2005-06-29
      Author
      Ross, Paul Douglas
      Type
      Thesis
      Degree Level
      Masters
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      Abstract
      In this thesis, I discuss John Searle’s account of Intentionality which includes his theory of the Background as something which is necessary, in some sense, to there being such a thing as Intentionality. In chapter one I briefly introduce the notions of both background and normativity. In chapter two, I discuss the motives and initial rationale of Searle’s theory. In chapter three I discuss the philosophers he has had contact with who anticipated the Background. In chapter four I claim that Searle has always been conflicted about his theory and I diagnose the root of his conflict, namely that the original rationale required the Background to be normative in nature, but over time it was additionally conceived neurophysiologically, causally, and thus non-normative in nature. I argue that his conflict is inevitable given the irreducibility of the intentional to the non-intentional, and more generally of the normative to the non-normative.
      Degree
      Master of Arts (M.A.)
      Department
      Philosophy
      Program
      Philosophy
      Supervisor
      Dwyer, Philip
      Committee
      Pfeifer, Karl; Mackenzie, Patrick; Kelly, Ivan W.
      Copyright Date
      June 2005
      URI
      http://hdl.handle.net/10388/etd-07262005-022148
      Subject
      knowing-that
      knowing-how
      implicature
      presupposition
      form of life
      practice
      mental
      Wittgenstein
      assumption
      capacity
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      • Graduate Theses and Dissertations
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