Searle on Consciousness

This is a discussion of Searle's book mind, language and society (1999, Weidenfield & Nicolson, London). Indented paragraphs are exact quotes from the book.

1. The "definition" of consciousness.

The main problem with discussing "consciousness", though most of people ignore it, is that the word does not have an agreed meaning, so the meaning of text which uses consciousness as a central concept varies between people. Searle does not admit the problem explicitly, but at least puts some effort in clarifying the concept. After telling us that (p.40) "The primary and most essential feature of minds is consciousness," he tells us what he means by the word "Consciousness" (pp.40-41):

By "consciousness" I mean those states of sentience or awareness that typically begin when we wake up in the morning from a dreamless sleep and continue throughout the day until we fall asleep again.
The first thing to note about this definition is that is says that consciousness is not an entity. It is 'states'. Secondly, this definition actually means anything only if 'sentience' and 'awareness' have a meaning which is independent of the meaning of consciousness. I don't think 'sentience' has any such meaning, and if there is such meaning it is not obvious, so we are really left only with 'awareness'. 'Awareness' may have a less vague meaning (the ability to report and to recall later current perceptions), but ability doesn't have states. That awareness is not what Searle means is made clear by the fact that he thinks that we are "in one or more forms of consciousness" when we are "dreaming during sleep" (p.41). Hence, this definition is devoid of any meaning, in the sense that each reader can interpret it the way he/she likes.

From the way the discussion continues it is not obvious if Searle continues the definition of "consciousness", or whether the definition above was supposed to be complete and what follows is a discussion of the properties of "consciousness". E.g. when he writes(P.41):

The essential features of consciousness, in all its forms, are its inner, qualitative, and subjective nature in the special sense of these words that I explain in a moment.
It is not obvious if this is an assertion or part of the definition of "consciousness."

Before actually discussing the meaning of these three words, Searle gives us examples of "conscious experience" (p.41). It is worth noting that Searle here discusses 'experiences' rather than 'states'. Is it important point? If 'states' and 'experiences' mean the same thing, it is not, but I doubt if anybody does think that "experiences" and "states" are the same. So why does Searle switch between the terms?

We can find the answer by looking at the examples that Searle gives. All the examples he lists have some emotional content, and it does not contain non-emotional experiences, e.g. getting of the bed, dressing up, brushing your teeth, go to work etc. These experiences are much more common, so why does Searle ignore them? Because they don't fit, as we shell see in a moment.

2. The three features of consciousness

2.1 Inner

Searle starts by giving 'inner' the obvious meaning, which is pretty trivial (pp. 41-42). However, he then says (p.42):

Consciousness is also inner in a second sense, and that is that any one of our conscious states exists only as an element in a sequence of such states.
Calling this feature ' a second sense of inner' is really bizarre. It seems that Searle wanted to add this feature to the description of consciousness, but didn't want to add a feature to the explicit list (inner, qualitative, subjective), so he simply sticks the additional feature in the least inappropriate place. Maybe that is because Searle is going to ignore this feature in the rest of the text.

The following discussion suggest that when Searle says "sequence" he actually means "network" , and the proper name for this feature is something like 'interconnectedness".

2.2 Qualitative

Searle explains 'qualitative' this way (p.42):

Conscious states are qualitative in the sense that for each conscious state there is a certain way that it feels, there is a certain qualitative character to it.
The second part of the sentence is bizarre. Clearly, 'qualitative character' cannot be used to define 'qualitative', so why does Searle write it? The first part of the sentence does define it as having "a certain way that it feels." But is this true? For example, as I write this sentence I am presumably in some conscious state (according to Searle), but I wouldn't say that it feels in a certain way, and that it true most of the time. Obviously, Searle understands here the word 'feels' differently from the way that I (and, I would guess, most readers) understand it, but it is not obvious what this meaning is.

At this point we can see the significance of the exclusion of non-emotional experiences from the list which was presented on p.41. All the experiences in this list obviously feel in some way, and hence this list gives the impression that there is no problem with the word 'feels'. Searle continues the manoeuvre in the rest of the paragraph, when he brings as examples drinking red wine and listening to music.

After giving his problematic definition of 'qualitative', Searle continues (p.42):

Thomas Nagel made this point years ago by saying that for every conscious state there is something that it is like to be in that conscious state.
This well known 'definition' is obviously empty of content, as its meaning depends on the meaning of the word 'something', and 'something' (by definition) does not have a specific meaning. Thus the 'meaning' of this sentence depends of the meaning that the reader gives to 'something', which in general will fit the way the reader uses the term 'conscious state'. It gives the impression of being a definition only to people that believe intuitively that everybody understands the term 'conscious state'(and therefore 'something' in this sentence) in the same way that they do.

2.3 Subjective

Searle says (p.42):

Finally, and most importantly for our discussion, conscious states are subjective in the sense that they are always experienced by a human or animal subject.
That looks clear only until you realise that Searle does not tell us what 'experienced' means here, and that the normal meaning does not fit here, because in the normal meaning the agent is separate from thing it is experiencing. So what does Searle mean? In what sense, for example, do I 'experience' my current conscious state? Searle cannot be meaning that I am aware of it, as he claims that we are conscious when we dream as well, unless we strip the word 'aware' of any meaning. Thus, like the definition of 'qualitative', this definition can be interpreted by each reader the way he/she feels like. The way Searle continues is not clearer (p.42):
Conscious states, therefore, have what we might call a "first-person ontology." That is, they exist only from the point of view of some agent or organism or animal or self that has them.
So what does it means that something "exists from the point of view of some agent" ? The normal meaning of this phrase is that the agent perceive this something. As above, this interpretation, however, makes sense only if this something is a separate entity from the agent, and clearly is not applicable to an agent and his conscious states. Thus this sentence also needs a non-standard interpretation. Searle continues (p.42):
Conscious states have a first-person mode existence. Only as experienced by some agent - that is, by a "subject" - does a pain exist.
The normal usage of 'pain' does not correspond to an entity that can exist, e.g. 'I have pain in my leg' is a short way of expressing something like 'I feel in a way that I hates and tries to avoid and it seems to be caused by something that is wrong in my leg'. It does not imply the existence of anything which is 'pain' in my leg or in my head. Searle, however, thinks about 'pain' as something that can exist. What does he mean? Maybe he means something like 'the state that I am in when I feel this way', but this would mean anything only if we know a state of what is this state. It cannot be a state of the brain, because brain states exist in third-person mode as well. Thus this sentence is also opened to interpretation.

We can figure out what Searle means by reading the next paragraph (p.43):

One consequence of the subjectivity of conscious states is that my states of consciousness are accessible to me in a way that they are not accessible to you.
So Searle thinks about 'states of consciousness', and pain is presumably one of these. However, Searle told us earlier that (pp.40-41): "By "consciousness" I mean those states of sentience or awareness ..". Hence, by 'states of consciousness' he should be meaning 'states of states of sentience or awareness ..'. Clearly, that is nonsense. One resolution is that 'states of conscious' are the same as 'states of sentience or awareness', but this is meaningless as I discussed in (1) above, and does not solve the problem of what the states are states of. The other possibility is that Searle is an hidden dualist, who believes that consciousness is some entity that can be in different states, and his definition on pp. 40-41 and the following discussion is just a smokescreen to hide it.

This paragraph (most of p.43) actually makes clear one aspect of 'subjectivity', that is that conscious states are accessible to the individuals that has them in a way that they are not accessible to other individuals. However, this aspect does not distinguish conscious states from brain states. Clearly, my brain states are accessible to me in a way that they are not accessible to anybody else. Therefore, this clear aspect does not actually clarify what conscious states are.

Some readers may interpret Searle as meaning that conscious states are the way the individual perceive his own brain states, but this perceptions are either other brain states, or some dualist stuff, so this interpretation does not actually clears the picture.

3.Dualism and materialism and Searle position

After his 'clarification' of the meaning of "consciousness", Searle goes on to describe dualism and materialism. He rejects both of these options, dualism because (p.47)"the dualist cannot explain how it relates to the material world we all live in", and materialism because (p.47) "it ends up denying the existence of consciousness". He then says that the resolution of the dilemma is to reject both alternatives and the associated definitions.

He summarises his position on p.53:

  1. Consciousness consists of inner, qualitative, subjective states and processes. It has therefore a first-person ontology.
  2. Because it has a first-person ontology, consciousness cannot be reduced to third-person phenomena in the way that is typical of other natural phenomena such at heat, liquidity, or solidity.
  3. Consciousness is, above all, a biological phenomenon. Conscious processes are biological processes.
  4. Consciousness processes are caused by lower-level neuronal processes in the brain.
  5. Consciousness consists of higher-level processes realised in the structure of the brain.
  6. There is, as far as we know, no reason in principle why we could not build an artificial brain that also causes and realises consciousness.
This 'position' avoids choosing between dualism and materialism simply by dodging the issue, which is whether consciousness processes and states are neuronal or not. Searle seems to think that consciousness features are not neuronal, both because he avoid using 'neuronal' in item 5, and because he claims that consciousness cannot be reduced in the same way that heat etc. can be. As far as we know, there is no reason to believe that neuronal process cannot be reduced (to activity of individual neurons in the first stage) in the same way that heat can be reduced to molecular motion (accept that the reduction of neuronal processes is much more complex), and Searle does not try to challenge this possibility anywhere is his text. That Searle believe consciousness is not based on neuronal processes is made clearer by comments later in the book, e.g. (p.86):
But what fact corresponds to the that claim when I am totally unconscious? The only actually existing facts then and there are facts involving states of my brain that are describable in purely neurobiological terms
However, Searle does tell us that consciousness processes are 'realised in the structure of the brain', and as far as we know neuronal processes are the only processes in the brain that can be candidates for anything mental.

So what does Searle actually think? The best explanation is that the answer is that Searle is a hidden dualist, who tries to hide it. The following section about the irreducibility of consciousness strengthen this suspicion. He imagines a situation in which we advanced enough to have a brain-o-scope(p.57). Searle does not tell us explicitly what the brain-o-scope allows us to do, but it seems he means that it allows us to see all the processes in the brain and interpret them correctly. He imagines the possibility of defining 'pain' as some specific activity in the brain, and then says(p.53):

But we leave something out in this case, something essential to our concept of consciousness. What we leave out is subjectivity.
and later (p.53):
But we cannot carve off the subjective experiences of consciousness, because the whole point of having the concept of consciousness in the first place is to have a name for the subjective first-person phenomena.
So it seems that Searle thinks that there are 'subjective first-person phenomena' which will not show in the brain-o-scope. In other words, there are phenomena that are not realised in brain processes (in contradiction to his item 5 above). This is classic dualism.

Another interpretation is that Searle does not believe that the brain-o-scope can, even in principle, show us all the processes in the brain. Since Searle does not actually tell us the properties of the brain-o-scope, this possibility is left open, but this interpretation makes all this section another issue-dodging exercise.

4. The evolutionary argument against epiphenomenalism:

The first argument that Searle advances against epiphenommenalism is (p.58) :

it would be miraculous, unlike anything that ever occurred in biological history, if something in biology as elaborate, rich, and structured as human and animal consciousness made no causal difference to the real world. From what we know about evolution, it is unlikely that epiphenommenalism could be right.
Searle does not actually make the argument explicit, which hides how nonsensical it is. The only reasonable interpretation of this is that Searle means that consciousness arises by genetic evolution, and the probability of such evolution is small unless consciousness has some effect. This statement is plain nonsense, because if consciousness is a side-effect of mental processes, as epiphenomenalists believe, then it will arise when mental processes arise, without any miracles. Searle says this argument is not decisive, but actually it is not an argument at all.

5. The main argument against epiphenommenalism

In page 59 Searle says:
Suppose we start with what we independently know. Suppose we start with the fact that the mind affects the body and the body affects the mind, and go from here.
The italics are in the source, so obviously Searle thinks this is a key statement. How should we understand it? It clearly means that Searle thinks that the mind is not part of the body or an activity of part of the body, because otherwise this is a trivial statement (obviously, parts of the body or activity in parts of the body affect and are affected by the body). But if the mind is not part of the body or activity of part of it, what is it? Some dualist stuff seems to be the only answer.

Searle continues (p. 59):

That is, let assume at the start what we all know from our own experiences - that there are causal relations between consciousness and other physical events.
This is ridiculous, as this is exactly what the epiphenomenalists are challenging. Searle argues against them simply by assuming that they are wrong. The following discussion does not brings anything that can even resemble an additional argument.

On pp.61-62 he discusses as an example the description of an engine, and says that the description at the lower level (atoms, chemicals compounds etc.) does not invalidate the description at higher-level (pistons, cylinders etc.). He then says that the same applies to the 'mental' (presumably means consciousness, which is what he uses in the next sentence) vs. neuronal description. This is simply false, because in the case of the engine we believe that the two descriptions (high-level and low-level) describe the same thing. For example, it does not make sense to say that the atoms in the piston affect the piston. In the case of the mind, however, Searle thinks that it does make sense to say that the mind affects the body, so the relation between the mind and body is different from the relation between the piston and its atoms, and the analogy is invalid.

6. The function of consciousness

On page 63. Searle says:

The normal way we have of inquiring into the evolutionary role of some phenotypical trait is to imagine the absence of that trait, while holding the rest of nature constant, and then see what happens.
and two sentences later (p.63):
Now try it with consciousness. Imagine that we all fall into a coma and lie around prostrate and helpless.
That is an example of blatant nonsense. We all know that falling into a coma involves changes in the brain, which are third-person phenomena (we already can monitor them to some extent), and hence are not consciousness as Searle seems to define it. Therefore, this thought-experiment does not hold the rest of nature (except consciousness) constant, as Searle required in the previous quote. To make this a sensible argument, Searle would have to claim that it is possible that we fall into coma without any third-person changes in the brain. It is interesting to know if Searle really thinks that this is possible.

7. The structure of 'consciousness'

In chapter 3 Searle gives us a list of the structural features of consciousness. The main problem with this list is that most of it are features of cognition (the thinking system) and perception (input analysis), or simply features of reality. There is no reason to believe that they have anything to do with 'consciousness', i.e. qualitative and subjective stuff (obviously, cognition is inner). Searle does not bother to advance any argument for claiming that these features are features of 'consciousness'. He simply takes it for granted.

Feature 1, subjectivity, was discussed above. Feature 2, unity, is clearly a feature of the brain. Feature 3 is discussed in the next chapter, so I skip it here. Feature 5 is a feature of perception and of the world. Features 6-9 are a feature of thinking. Features 4 and 10 could be attributed to consciousness, if Searle could give us a reason why they are not simply some kind of neural activity in the brain, which is suggested, for example, by the fact that drugs can affect them directly.

8. Intentionality

Underlying the discussion of intentionality is the common error of many philosophers of the mind that 'an agent thinks about some entity' requires some relation between the agent and the entity, which is not completely described by the other thoughts and behaviour that the agent associates (consciously or unconsciously) with the thought about the entity. Searle does not make explicitly this assumption (and obviously does not argue for it), but his discussion does not make sense otherwise.

Searle introduces 'Intentionality' by writing (p.85) :

My subjective states relate me to the rest of the of the world, and the general name of that relationship is "intentionality."
For this sentence to make sense, there must be something which is "me". So what is "me" in this sentence stands for? This sentence suggests that Searle believes that there is some "me" inside, though it does not actually discusses it. The two following sentences suggest that this "me" may be 'the mind'.

The more important question is what 'relate' means. Searle writes two sentences later (p.85):

"Intentionality", to repeat, is the general term for all the various forms by which the mind can be directed at, or be about, or of, objects and states of affairs in the world.
So 'relate' means, presumably, be directed, or be about or of. However, this still does not answer whether it means anything except association with other thoughts and behaviour or not.

On the next page Searle explains his ideas about the relations between intentionality and consciousness, He writes (p.86):

The relation is this: brain states that are nonconscoius can be understood as mental states only to the extent that we understand them as capable, in principle, of giving rise to conscious states.
What does mental mean here? The normal definition of 'mental' is 'something to do with the mind', but it does not seem to be the right interpretation. It seems that in this section Searle uses the term mental to mean 'Intentional'. This makes the discussion more coherent, because otherwise it would seem that Searle discusses intentionality without mentioning it. Confusingly, the only mention of 'intentional' or 'intentionality' in the rest of this section (87-89) is in the phrase 'intentional mental state', which suggests that intentional and mental are not the same, but this phrase is used as an elaboration of 'mental' (italics in the source).

This phrase appears on (p.88):

I think the view that we have unconscious mental states that causally explain our behaviour, states that are mental and yet not the sort of state that could function consciously, is incoherent. The view is incoherent because it cannot answer the question: what facts about these brain processes makes them mental, makes them have the features of intentional mental states?
Assuming 'mental' means 'intentional', these sentences show that Searle do the typical mistake that I explained above. If 'intentionality' requires only association with other states and with behaviour, there is no reason why unconscious brain states cannot be 'mental'. Therefore, Searle thinks that to be mental this states need more than this, even though he does not say what.

Searle elaborates a little on this when he presents the 'puzzle of Intentionality' (p.89-90):

How can that state of my brain - consisting in such things as configurations of neurons and synaptic connections, activated by neurotransmitters - stand for anything?
The answer is, of course, is that there is no need for anything to stand for (whatever this means) anything to account for all the observations, so we don't need to assume that anything does. For Searle that is not an acceptable solution, and he rejects it by simply ignoring it. after some discussion he starts to explain his solution on p.96:
We know that we are looking for causal mechanisms in the brain.
and continues (pp.96-97):
Now, and this is the point, once we reach the actual visual experience, we have the intrinsic intentionality we have been looking for. There is no way I could have this visual experience I am actually having without it at least seeming to me that there is a computer screen in front of me.
This statement can be interpreted as avoiding the mistake that I attributed to philosophers above: This visual experience is 'about' the screen because it is related to another brain state of 'seeming to me that there is a screen in front of me'. That does not seem to be what Searle actually means, judging by the way he clarifies it (p.97):
it is internal to this very experience, as a conscious event in the world, that it has exactly this intentionality.
and
It is internal to the state that it has this intentionality. It could not be this very visual experience if it was not an experience whose intentionality was that it is a case of seeming to see this thing in front of me.
Thus it does not seem that Searle thinks in terms of brain states, and his 'intentionality' is simply 'internal to the state'. This impression is strengthen the rest of the discussion in this chapter (to page 109), which totally ignores the brain. Searle by now doesn't even try to hide his dualism. His answer to the problem the dualist (p.47)"the dualist cannot explain how it relates to the material world we all live in" is simply to assume that intentionality and consciousness are related to the world, completely ignoring the brain.

9. The structural of Intentional states

The discussion of the structure of intentional states is mostly definitions of terms to use for categorising intentional states (direction of fit, conditions of satisfaction), without anything interesting about their mechanisms and what are they with respect to the brain.

10. Intentional causation

Searle tells us on p. 105:

The form in which they do is intentional causation. This form of causation differs dramatically from billiard ball or Humean causation: the cause and effect work in the way they do because either the cause is a representation of the effect or the effect is a representation of the cause.
Obviously, causing something by 'representing' it is simply magic, and it is ridiculous to use it as an explanation for anything. Searle elaborates it this way (p.105):
Here are some examples of how it works, If I want to drink water, and I then drink water by of satisfying my desire to drink, the desire (that I drink water), causes it to be the case that I drink water.
The usual explanation for thirst and drinking is that lack of water causes a brain state which is unpleasant (Searle describes the process on page 95, except that he thinks that it is 'a conscious desire' rather than a brain state). It has nothing to do with any representation. So where does the representation come from? One possibility is that 'representation' means any brain state, but this makes all the discussion meaningless. If 'representation' means anything different or more specific, then the last quote is a experimental proposition which is not clear, and for which Searle does not advance any argument.

The rest of the discussion in this section is again definitional, without anything about the mechanism and the relation to the brain.

11. 'The structural of the universal universe'

Searle presents three 'puzzles' on pp. 113-115, and goes on for a lengthy discussion, and then presents the 'solutions' (pp. 131-134). Of these 'puzzle', the first and second are trivial: explaining the concept of money without being circular (p.114) is simply "something that is acceptable as payment not because of its intrinsic value", and "institutional reality function causally'"(p.114) by the fact that people in the 'institutions' behave according to the rules. These are approximately the answers that Searle gives, but with much more elaboration.

The third puzzle is presented in a somewhat confused way. First it is "What exactly is the role of language in institutional reality?" Later it becomes clear that Searle means only the role of performative utterances. On this question Searle fails to actually reach the answer, which is that performative utterances are mostly declarations of intention to act in some way, and creates a new state by making people believe that the declaring agent(s) and whoever they represent will act accordingly. For example the statement "this note is legal tender for all debts public and private" on a twenty-dollars bill (p.115) is a declaration by the U.S. government that it is going to ensure that this bill is acceptable as a legal tender, and the statement "I resign" (p. 115) means I am going to stop performing my current job. The other part of performatives are instructions, e.g. when a priest pronounces somebody husband and wife, he actually gives an instruction to society to regard this pair as married couple.

12. 'Collective intentionality'

In discussing collective intentionality, Searle first attacks the idea that it can be reduced to individual intentionality, by claiming that it requires infinite regress of the form 'I believe that you intend', ' I believe that you believe that I believe that you intend' etc. Searle does not bother to tell us why this is required, except to suggest (not explicitly) that this is what philosophers think, without giving the philosophers arguments.

Based on the infinite regress, Searle rejects this idea and suggests "a much simpler solution" (p.119):

Just take the collective intentionality in my head as a primitive. It is in the form "we intend" even though it is in my individual head.
Inventing a primitive is indeed a simple solution, but it does not make sense. According to Searle, 'intentionality' is the relation between "me", or the mind, and the world (see quotes in (8) from page 85). So collective intentionality is, presumably, the relation between "us", or our minds, to the world. Obviously, I cannot have in my head something that relates other people's minds to the world. Searle does not bother to discuss this point at all. Instead he simply reiterates that it is possible to have a "we intentionality".

13. The effects of illocutionary acts

On pp. 136-137 Searle says:

We need to distinguish illocutionary acts, which are the target of analysis proper, from the effects or consequences that illocutionary acts have on hearers. So, for example, by ordering you to do something I might get you to do it.
Getting you to do it is not the direct effect of the order. The direct effect is that you understand that I gave an order. That understanding may have the effect that you do it.

It may seem a small point, but it isn't. Ignoring the fact that language has an effect on the thinking processes of the hearer (or reader, viewer of sign language etc.) is the main problem of the way Searle analyses language.

14. What is meaning

On p. 140 Searle distinguishes between sentence meaning (or word meaning) and speaker meaning or utterance meaning, and says he is going to discuss the speaker meaning. These terms have quite obvious definitions: sentence meaning is "the way the sentence is interpreted by the relevant group of people (more generally, agents)", and speaker meaning. is "the way the speaker wants and expects the hearers to interpret his utterance" (if what the speaker wants is not the same as what he expects, there is no coherent 'speaker meaning' of the utterance). Note that these definitions make the sentence meaning a combined property of the sentences and the relevant group of people, while the speaker meaning is a property of the speaker at the time he utters the utterance.

Searle seems to think differently. During all the discussion, he writes as if the speaker meaning is a property of the words themselves. He is talking about the speaker "imposing a meaning" on the words, and says on p. 141:

The original or intrinsic intentionality of a speaker's thought is transferred to words, sentences, marks, symbols and so on. If uttered meaningfully, those words, sentences, marks, and symbols now have intentionality derived from the speaker's thoughts. They have not just conventional linguistic meaning but intended speaker meaning as well.
So Searle clearly think that the words (sentences etc.) have some property, which is distinct from their physical properties and conventional meaning, and is not in the speaker (it "is transferred to words"). This sounds to me an absurd, but somehow Searle thinks that it makes sense.

There are several possible explanations: (1) Searle actually means that it is in the physical properties of words. That does not fit with the rest of the discussion. (2) Searle actually believes that the words have some additional property in addition to their physical properties, i.e. some dualist stuff. 3) Searle actually means that it is in the speaker's mind, and all the "transfer" to the words is a metaphor. That is possible, and to some extent agrees with the following discussion.

Searle continues to say that the speaker imposes his intentionality on the words by imposing a condition of satisfaction. But he does not bother to explain how come words have a condition of satisfaction that is not totally dependent on either their conventional meaning or what the speaker thinks when he says the words. The discussion, specially towards the end of the section (pp. 143-144), suggests that Searle does think about the speaker thoughts when he writes about the intentionality of the words. However, this does not explain why he bother with all the discussion, and never says explicitly that the speaker's thoughts is what he means.

15. meaning and communication

on p. 145 Searle writes:

Thus, going through the steps of the utterance of "Es regnet," my speaker's meaning and my communication intention amount to the following: I utter the sentence "es regnet" with the intention that
  1. I should be correctly uttering a sentence of German with its conventional meaning.
  2. my utterance should have conditions of satisfaction, namely, the truth condition that it is raining; and
  3. The hearer should recognise intention 2, and he should recognise intention 2 by means of his recognition of intention 1 and his knowledge of the conventions of German.
The only reason this is not simply false is that Searle uses first-person language (I utter...), and in principle it is possible that when Searle says "Es regnet" he does really intend all the things he says he does. However, the text is supposed to be general, and in this case it is false, because (2) is totally redundant. Clearly, "correctly uttering a sentence of German with its conventional meaning" would be enough for any German speaker to understand what you said. For him to regard it as "what you mean" he also needs to recognise that you actually intended to perform the utterance, but there is nothing that he has to recognise about the utterance itself on top its conventional meaning.

Searle clarifies this in this way (pp.145-146):

That is if the hearer knows the language, recognises my intention to produce a sentence of the language, and recognises that I am not merely uttering that sentence but that I also mean what I say, then I will have succeeded in communicating to the hearer that it is raining.
That sounds plausible, but the only thing that can be matched to the "my utterance should have conditions of satisfaction" from (2) above is "I also mean what I say". Maybe the latter is what Searle means when he writes "The conditions of satisfaction of my utterance", but it is quite a bizarre way of saying it.