Questioning Searle’s Explanation of Unconscious Mental State

Upholding the principle of Biological Naturalism, John Searle requires that explanation of mental phenomenon must be coherent with findings in scientific studies. To meet the requirement of coherence, Searle puts forward his “connection principle”. This paper contends that his requirement is not well met in his own study of unconscious mental states. Firstly, his classification of unconscious mental states is not reasonable. For example, he has classified “knowledge of language” into deep unconscious mental state, which in nature belongs to nonconscious mental state. The classification is not in accord with findings in linguistic studies, nor with linguistic practice. Secondly, his explanation for the unconscious mental process is doubtful. Based on his “connection principle”, unconscious mental state is nothing but potential conscious mental state and therefore the processing of unconscious mental activity should resemble that of conscious mental activity. But this explanation is not coherent with findings in cognitive science. The paper concludes that Searle fails in his requirement of coherence.