John Searle Quotes

"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
(Related: Belief)

"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
(Related: Questions, Style)

"Where conscious subjectivity is concerned, there is no distinction between the observation and the thing observed."
- John Searle
(Related: Observation)

"Whatever is referred to must exist. Let us call this the axiom of existence."
- John Searle
(Related: Existence)

"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
(Related: Machines, Metaphor, Nothing)

"My car and my adding machine understand nothing: they are not in that line of business."
- John Searle
(Related: Business, Car, Machine)

"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
(Related: Decision, Fact)

"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
(Related: Car, Computer, Machine, Nothing, Sense, Will)

"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
(Related: Fancy, Want, Word)

"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
(Related: Body, Liberal)

"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
(Related: Tools)