John Searle Quotes

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• The reason that no computer program can ever be a mind is simply that a computer program is only syntactical, and minds are more than syntactical. Minds are semantical, in the sense that they have more than a formal structure, they have a content.

  John Searle

  Mind, Computer, Reason

  "Minds, Brains and Science". Book by John R. Searle, 1984.

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• If you can't say it clearly, you don't understand it yourself

  John Searle

  Ifs

  John Searle (2010). “Making the Social World: The Structure of Human Civilization”, p.8, Oxford University Press

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• It seemed to a number of philosophers of language, myself included, that we should attempt to achieve a unification of Chomsky's syntax, with the results of the researches that were going on in semantics and pragmatics. I believe that this effort has proven to be a failure. Though Chomsky did indeed revolutionize the subject of linguistics, it is not at all clear, at the end the century, what the solid results of this revolution are. As far as I can tell there is not a single rule of syntax that all, or even most, competent linguists are prepared to agree is a rule.

  John Searle

  Believe, Numbers, Effort

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• The problem posed by indirect speech acts is the problem of how it is possible for the speaker to say one thing and mean that but also to mean something else.

  John Searle

  Mean, Speech, Problem

  "Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts". Book by John Searle, 1979.

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• You can't *discover* that the brain is a digital computer. You can only *interpret* the brain as a digital computer.

  John Searle

  Brain, Digital, Computer

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• Where consciousness is concerned, the appearance is the reality.

  John Searle

  Reality, Consciousness, Appearance

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• Many people mistakenly suppose that the essence of consciousness is that of a control mechanism

  John Searle

  Essence, People, Consciousness

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• Because we do not understand the brain very well we are constantly tempted to use the latest technology as a model for trying to understand it. In my childhood we were always assured that the brain was a telephone switchboard...Sherrington, the great British neuroscientist, thought the brain worked like a telegraph system. Freud often compared the brain to hydraulic and electromagnetic systems. Leibniz compared it to a mill...At present, obviously, the metaphor is the digital computer.

  John Searle

  Science, Technology, Childhood

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• There is no success or failure in Nature.

  John Searle

  Success Or Failure

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• "Akrasia" [weakness of will] in rational beings is as common as wine in France.

  John Searle

  Wine, Weakness, France

  "Rationality in Action". Book by John Searle, 2001.

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• We do not live in several different, or even two different, worlds, a mental world and a physical world, a scientific world and a world of common sense. Rather, there is just one world; it is the world we all live in, and we need to account for how we exist as part of it.

  John Searle

  Knowledge, Two, Common Sense

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• In the performance of an illocutionary act in the literal utterance of a sentence, the speaker intends to produce a certain effect by means of getting the hearer to recognize his intention to produce that effect; and furthermore, if he is using the words literally, he intends this recognition to be achieved in virtue of the fact that the rules for using the expressions he utters associate the expression with the production of that effect.

  John Searle

  Mean, Expression, Utterance

  "Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language". Book by John Searle, 1969.

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• The Intentionality of the mind not only creates the possibility of meaning, but limits its forms.

  John Searle

  Mind, Limits, Possibility

  "Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind". Book by John Searle, 1983.

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• Whatever is referred to must exist. Let us call this the axiom of existence.

  John Searle

  Existence, Axioms

  "Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language". Book by John Searle, 1969.

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• Well, what does "good" mean anyway? As Wittgenstein suggested, "good," like "game," has a family of meanings. Prominent among them is this one: "meets the criteria or standards of assessment or evaluation."

  John Searle

  Mean, Assessment, Games

  "Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language". Book by John Searle, 1969.

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• An utterance can have Intentionality, just as a belief has Intentionality, but whereas the Intentionality of the belief is intrinsic the Intentionality of the utterance is derived.

  John Searle

  Utterance, Belief, Intentionality

  "Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind". Book by John Searle, 1983.

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• Where questions of style and exposition are concerned I try to follow a simple maxim: if you can't say it clearly you don't understand it yourself.

  John Searle

  Simple, Style, Trying

  "Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind". Book by John Searle, 1983.

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• You do not understand your own tradition if you do not see it in relation to others.

  John Searle

  Tradition, Relation, Ifs

  "The Storm Over the University". The New York Review of Books, www.ditext.com. December 06, 1990.

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• Nowadays nobody bothers, and it is considered in slightly bad taste to even raise the question of God's existence. Matters of religion are like matters of sexual preference: they are not discussed in public, and even the abstract questions are discussed only by bores.

  John Searle

  Matter, Taste, Abstract

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• Where conscious subjectivity is concerned, there is no distinction between the observation and the thing observed.

  John Searle

  Objectivity, Subjectivity, Conscious

  "The Rediscovery of the Mind". Book by John Searle, 1992.

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• Darwin's greatest achievement was to show that the appearance of purpose, planning, teleology (design), and intentionality in the origin and development of human and animal species was entirely an illusion. The illusion could be explained by evolutionary processes that contained no such purpose at all. But the spread of ideas through imitation required the whole apparatus of human consciousness and intentionality

  John Searle

  Animal, Ideas, Achievement

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• Dualism makes the problem insoluble; materialism denies the existence of any phenomenon to study, and hence of any problem.

  John Searle

  Study, Problem, Materialism

  "Consciousness and Language". Book by John Searle, 2002.

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• The general nature of the speech act fallacy can be stated as follows, using "good" as our example. Calling something good is characteristically praising or commending or recommending it, etc. But it is a fallacy to infer from this that the meaning of "good" is explained by saying it is used to perform the act of commendation.

  John Searle

  Example, Calling, Speech

  "Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language". Book by John Searle, 1969.

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• Materialism ends up denying the existence of any irreducible subjective qualitative states of sentience or awareness.

  John Searle

  Materialism, Awareness, Ends

  "Consciousness and Language". Book by John Searle, 2002.

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• I want to block some common misunderstandings about "understanding": In many of these discussions one finds a lot of fancy footwork about the word "understanding."

  John Searle

  Block, Understanding, Want

  "Minds, Brains and Programs". John Searle, "Behavioral and Brain Sciences", Volume 3, No. 3, 1980.

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