約翰．舍爾論「背景」與實在論

美國著名哲學家約翰．舍爾（John Searle）提出「背景」（Background）這個概念的一個主要用意，便是為了要用以支持哲學上認為外在世界的確存在的所謂實在論（realism）。就晚近的哲學傳統而言，類似於舍爾的「背景」概念的提出，有著一個極為重要的用意，那便是要去反對笛卡兒主義（Cartesianism）哲學的一些基本立場。但舍爾在說明其「背景」概念之餘，卻又明確地引進笛卡兒主義的主張。本文試圖指出此一作法不但對吾人如何習得語言無法加以合理說明，而衡諸晚近的認知科學的發展，其所引進的笛卡兒主義的主張本身也有其困難。更值得注意的是，舍爾的「背景」概念，也會因而達不到充分支持實在論的目的。因此重新正確地去瞭解「背景」概念與其所指的現象究竟為何，實有其必要。

關鍵字

約翰．舍爾；背景；實在論；笛卡兒主義

並列摘要

For John Searle, a famous American philosopher, one of the main purposes for introducing what he calls the Background is to give support to realism, a view which affirms the existence of the external world. But his notion of the Background is vitiated by the fact that it is strangely based on some Cartesian assumptions. In this paper I argue that, because of this, his views face the following difficulties: (1) he cannot successfully explain how the literal meaning of a sentence or an utterance is to be learned; (2) one of his views runs counter to some of the findings in cognitive sciences; (3) the support his notion of the Background gives to realism is less than what he has expected. To see what significance the notion of the Background may have for philosophy in general and for realism in particular, we may need to find a better way of understanding the Background than what Searle has offered.