Searle's Background: comments on Runde and Faulkner

Alex Viskovatoff

Journal of Economic Methodology, 2001, vol. 9, issue 1, 65-80

Abstract: Searle's notion of the Background, a set of non-intentional mental states which makes intentionality possible, is receiving increasing interest from social theorists. This paper points out two commitments that the notion entails of which social theorists should be wary. The first is Searle's belief that 'Background abilities are not dependent on how things in fact work in the world'. This position is highly counter-intuitive - a person's ability to drive results from her having spent time operating automobiles - and derives from Searle's position, also implausible, that the content of a thought is independent of the object that that thought is about. The second is that invoking the Background is required in order to explain human behaviour which is inconsistent with utility theory: that position is unconvincing once one realizes that it is possible to conceive of rationality on lines alternative to those of utility maximization - as valid inference.

Keywords: Intentionality; Rationality; John Searle; John Mcdowell (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13501780110120118 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jecmet:v:9:y:2001:i:1:p:65-80

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RJEC20

DOI: 10.1080/13501780110120118

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Methodology is currently edited by John Davis and D Wade Hands

More articles in Journal of Economic Methodology from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().