Category: Searle
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Searle, Dennett and Zombies
Another in a series of Substack uploads debunking the brilliant scientistic sophistry of the late Daniel Dennett. I have over a thousand dollars in pledges. Should I monetize or not? It seems rude and arrogant not to graciously accept gifts. On the other hand, philosophy for me is a labor of love, a vocation, a…
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John Searle: Two Anecdotes
I wouldn't be mentioning the following two unflattering anecdotes had it not been for the recent revelations with regard to Searle's having been been stripped of his emeritus status at the University of California, Berkeley. He was found to have violated sexual harrassment policies. See The Fall of John Searle. In 1983 during my tenure…
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The Fall of John Searle
By now you will have heard that the distinguished philosopher, John R. Searle, has been stripped of his emeritus status at the University of California, Berkeley. He was found to have violated sexual harrassment policies. A long-time reader of this blog astutely observes that things went worse for Peter Abelard, and then adds: Also, behaviour…
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Objective Truth as a Condition of Intelligibility
John D. Caputo has recently made the fashionably outlandish claim that "what modern philosophers call 'pure' reason . . . is a white male Euro-Christian construction." Making this claim, Caputo purports to be saying something that is true. Moreover, his making of the claim in public is presumably for the purpose of convincing us that…
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John Searle Interviewed
This shot of the old philosopher by the fire with his shootin' ahrn nicely complements some of the combative things he says in the Zan Boag interview at NewPhilosopher. (HT: Karl White.) For example, "I don’t read much philosophy, it upsets me when I read the nonsense written by my contemporaries, the theory of extended…
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Searle, Subjectivity, and Objectivity
John Searle is a marvellous critic of theories in the philosophy of mind, perhaps the best. He makes all sorts of excellent points in his muscular and surly way. But his positive doctrine eludes me, assuming it is supposed to be a coherent doctrine. The problem may reside with me, of course. But I am…
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A Searle-y Objection to the Causal Theory of Names
Yesterday I argued that whether 'God' and equivalents as used by Jews, Christians, and Muslims refer to the same being depends on one's philosophy of language. In particular, I suggested that only on a causal theory of names could one maintain that their respective references are to the same entity. The causal theory of names,…
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Is God in Bad Taste? Some Anti-Searlean Remarks
In Mind, Language and Society, John R. Searle writes: In earlier generations, books like this one would have had to contain either an atheistic attack on or a theistic defense of traditional religion. [. . .] Nowadays nobody bothers, and it is considered in slightly bad taste to even raise the question of God's existence.…
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On Searle: Irreducibility Without Dualism?
As I said earlier, John R. Searle is a great philosophical critic. Armed with muscular prose, common sense, and a surly (Searle-ly?) attitude, he shreds the sophistry of Dennett and Co. But I have never quite understood his own solution to the mind-body problem. Herewith, some notes on one aspect of my difficulties and his.
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Searle, Dennett, and Zombies
A zombie is a critter that is physically and behaviorally exactly like a human being (or any being that we consider to be conscious) but lacks consciousness. That is a stipulative definition, so don't argue with me about it. Just accept it. I'll use 'zombie' to refer to human zombies and won't worry about cat…
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Searle on Non-Intentional Mental States
Herewith, a quotation from John Searle that supports my contention that there are non-intentional mental states: Now clearly, not all our mental states are in this way directed or Intentional. For example, if I have a pain, ache, tickle, or itch, such conscious states are not in that sense directed at anything; they are not…