Abstract
Despite the theory of intentionality is the representative theory proposed by Searle in the philosophy of mind, he still thought that the investigation on mind should not come to a halt with the discussion of intentionality. In the theory, Searle has penetrated intentionality and proposed the idea of “the Background” to explain the uniqueness of individual mental states. In the process which he expounded the development of the Background, there has been a crucial modification which is made to avoid some problems. The foundation of this modification is changing his opinion about the conscious and unconscious mental states, and what he had changed is he abandoned the idea that there are unconscious mental states in mind. That means, when Searle wanted to give a more complete claim about the Background, he had to inspect and modify his theory of intentionality as well. This relation between intentionality and the Background does not only show that the Background is an essential part in the theory, but manifests the evidence that the Background is an originally determinative factor to intentionality. In addition to the problems that Searle had become aware of, the idea of the Background has also encountered the challenges proposed by philosophers including Wan-chuan Fan, Barry Stroud, and David Sosa. The purpose of this thesis is to see if the Background could bear the trials above, and to see if there are other problems that Searle has not considered before and after the theory of the Background was modified by himself. Hence, this thesis should be divided into four parts: Firstly, I will give an account of Searle’s theory of intentionality. After that, I will discuss the relation between intentionality and the Background. Besides, the exhibitions of the Background in different period will also be included in this part. Moreover, I will discuss the difficulties of the Background proposed by the philosophers mentioned above. Finally, I will try to bring up some suspicions about Searle’s view concerning the Background. And base on these suspicions, I will reconsider the ideas related to the Background.