The Problem Posed By Indirect Speech Acts

Where Consciousness Is Concerned, The Appearance Is The Reality.

It Seemed To A Number Of Philosophers Of Language, Myself Included, That We Should Attempt To Achieve A Unification Of Chomsky's Syntax, With The Results Of The Researches That Were Going On In Semantics And Pragmatics. I Believe That This Effort Has Proven To Be A Failure. Though Chomsky Did Indeed Revolutionize The Subject Of Linguistics, It Is Not At All Clear, At The End The Century, What The Solid Results Of This Revolution Are. As Far As I Can Tell There Is Not A Single Rule Of Syntax That All, Or Even Most, Competent Linguists Are Prepared To Agree Is A Rule.

Darwin's Greatest Achievement Was To Show That The Appearance Of Purpose, Planning, Teleology (design), And Intentionality In The Origin And Development Of Human And Animal Species Was Entirely An Illusion. The Illusion Could Be Explained By Evolutionary Processes That Contained No Such Purpose At All. But The Spread Of Ideas Through Imitation Required The Whole Apparatus Of Human Consciousness And Intentionality

In Many Cases It Is A Matter For Decision And Not A Simple Matter Of Fact Whether X Understands Y; And So On.

Whatever Is Referred To Must Exist. Let Us Call This The Axiom Of Existence.