Searle, John (1932–)

John Searle was a pupil of J.L. Austin at Oxford in the 1950s. He is the Mills Professor of Mind and Language at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught philosophy since 1959. According to Searle, the primary objects of analysis in the philosophy of language are not expressions but the production of expressions, speech acts, in accordance with rules. Learning a language involves (often unconsciously) internalizing rules that govern the performance of speech acts in that language. Speech-act theory aims to discover these rules and is itself a part of action theory, which concerns intentional states directed at or about something. It follows that speech-act theory is part of a more comprehensive theory of intentionality.