A Griceian Gesture

Abstract of J. F. Bennett on Serale in Lepore:

"This paper criticizes John Searle's "Meaning, Communication, and Representation". Where Grice ties meaning to an intention to affect hearers, Searle ties it to an intention to represent--this having the advantage that it does not have to explain away cases of meaning where there is no intended hearer. It is argued here that those cases do not constitute much of an obstacle to Grice's theory of meaning, and that in any case Searle's concept of "representation" is not sound. Searle defines it in terms of the notion of the "success" of an action, which is left unexplained and apparently unexplainable."