John Searle Quotes

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The sense in which an automatic door "understands instructions" from its photoelectric cell is not at all the sense in which I understand English.

John Searle

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

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

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

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

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

You need to know enough of the natural sciences so that you are not a stranger in the world.

John Searle

John Searle

John Searle

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Born: July 31, 1932

Died: September 17, 2025 (aged 93)

Bio: John Rogers Searle was an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy.

Known for:

The Construction of Social Reality (1995)
The Mystery of Consciousness (1990)
The Rediscovery of the Mind (1992)
Minds, Brains, and Programs (1984)

Most used words:

John Searle on Wikipedia

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