J Searle Quotes

#1. 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

#2. Take encouragement from how far you've come, not how far you have left to go.

Debra Searle

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

John Searle

#4. We often attribute 'understanding' and other cognitive predicates by metaphor and analogy to cars, adding machines, and other artifacts, but nothing is proved by such attributions.

John Searle

#5. 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

#6. 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

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

John Searle

#8. 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

#9. My car and my adding machine understand nothing: they are not in that line of business.

John Searle

#10. Imagining and visualising the situation prepares you for any challenge

Debra Searle

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

John Searle

#12. In general, I feel if you can't say it clearly you don't understand it yourself.

John Rogers Searle

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

John Searle

#14. Enjoy the present, plot the progress, you'll still reach the goal

Debra Searle

#15. Many people mistakenly suppose that the essence of consciousness is that of a control mechanism

John Searle

#16. Berkeley had a liberal element in the student body who tended to be quite active. I think that's in general a feature of intellectually active places.

John Searle

#17. How do we get from electrons to elections and from protons to presidents?

John Searle

#18. Where consciousness is concerned, the appearance is the reality.

John Searle

#19. But it was never possible to forget that Searle was in a room. Why? she kept asking herself. Or rather, why not?

Josephine Tey

#20. There are clear cases in which 'understanding' literally applies and clear cases in which it does not apply; and these two sorts of cases are all I need for this argument.

John Searle

#21. In many cases it is a matter for decision and not a simple matter of fact whether x understands y; and so on.

John Searle

#22. Was it John Searle who called Jacques Derrida the sort of philosopher who gives bullshit a bad name?

David Markson

#23. Humphrey Searle writes music that sounds like the theme from 'Star Wars' played backwards through a washing machine.

Clive James

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

John Searle

#25. Elizabeth Searle writes with intelligence, passion and wit. She's one of the best young writers around.

Robert Boswell

#26. 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

#27. 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 Rogers Searle

#28. Our tools are extensions of our purposes, and so we find it natural to make metaphorical attributions of intentionality to them; but I take it no philosophical ice is cut by such examples.

John Searle

#29. I will argue that in the literal sense the programmed computer understands what the car and the adding machine understand, namely, exactly nothing.

John Searle

#30. Akrasia [weakness of will] in rational beings is as common as wine in France.

John Searle