Objective versus subjective There are a number of cases, however, in which the speaker’s beliefs, even if shared by everyone in the conversation, do not seem to determine content. Suppose, for example, that Elwood’s hero worship of John Searle has reached such a point that he now takes himself to be John Searle. He introduces himself to the new class of Stanford graduate students by saying, “I’m John Searle, from across the Bay.” It seems that even if he and everyone in the conversation believe