John Searle Quotes

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

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

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

- John Searle

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

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

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

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

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

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

- John Searle

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

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

- John Searle

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