Mind, Language, and Society: Weekend Book review

Doing a lot this week, so a summary, aphoristic book review:

John Searle: Mind, Language, and Society

An attempt to escape the material/ideal dichotomy by positing intentionality as the sign of the mind (a weak hypothesis, weakly supported by the essentially open role of the word "intentionality") then showing that intentionality can be measured physically through words.

The above is a vast oversimplification.

The book is still worth reading for anyone interested in cognitive science and language, even if it doesn't dedicate itself to science and empiricism like a Steven Pinker book. It's much more in the "cognitive philosophy" than "cognitive science" section of my mental shelf. If you're not so interested in language and mind, I'd recommend Pinker first, even though he's so much longer, he, ultimately, isn't a philosopher, who, as Shelley Kagan once said in his Open Yale class on death is "someone who doesn't know much"or some such thing.