The Intentionality of the mind not only creates the possibility of meaning, but limits its forms. John Searle More Quotes by John Searle More Quotes From John Searle The assertion fallacy is the fallacy of confusing the conditions for the performance of the speech act of assertion with the analysis of the meaning of particular words occurring in certain assertions. John Searle confusing analysis speech 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 umpires car understanding 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 speech example calling How do we get from electrons to elections and from protons to presidents? John Searle proton election president 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 The ascription of an unconscious intentional phenomenon to a system implies that the phenomenon is in principle accessible to consciousness. John Searle phenomenon consciousness principles My car and my adding machine understand nothing: they are not in that line of business John Searle machines car lines 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 machines car arguing 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 achievement animal ideas 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 decision simple matter 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 umpires understanding two It seems to me obvious that infants and many animals that do not in any ordinary sense have a language or perform speech acts nonetheless have Intentional states. Only someone in the grip of a philosophical theory would deny that small babies can literally be said to want milk and that dogs want to be let out or believe that their master is at the door. John Searle dog baby believe 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 philosophical ice cutting Materialism ends up denying the existence of any irreducible subjective qualitative states of sentience or awareness. John Searle materialism awareness ends 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 elements body thinking
