From Speech Act to Intentionality

In the Introduction, I have sketched the proposal that social consciousness, as a concept inherited from Karl Marx’s historical materialism, could be reinterpreted in light of the collective intentionality hypothesis. Moreover, by understanding social consciousness as a constituent part of collective intentionality, we can reconstruct the theoretical fruits of the young Marx and develop a naturalist theory of society with respect to the “essential power” of human conscious and sensuous activities. This proposal, I believe, is helpful not only for studying social consciousness but also for studies of collective intentionality. However, before we directly apply the collective intentionality hypothesis to the reinterpretation, some explanations regarding the issue “what is the Intentionality, and how is collective intentionality brought about?” are needed. To answer these questions, a historical examination of the conception of Intentionality is necessary.