Our tools are extensions of our purposes, and so we find it natural to make metaphorical attributions of intentionality to them; but… — John Searle Copy Share Image
Darwin's greatest achievement was to show that the appearance of purpose, planning, teleology (design), and intentionality in the origin and development of… — John Searle Copy Share Image
The Intentionality of the mind not only creates the possibility of meaning, but limits its forms. — John Searle Copy Share Image
The problem posed by indirect speech acts is the problem of how it is possible for the speaker to say one thing and mean… — John Searle Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
We often attribute 'understanding' and other cognitive predicates by metaphor and analogy to cars, adding machines, and other artifacts, but nothing is proved by… — John Searle Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
We do not live in several different, or even two different, worlds, a mental world and a physical world, a scientific world and a… — John Searle Copy Share Image
Whatever is referred to must exist. Let us call this the axiom of existence. — John Searle Copy Share Image
You can't *discover* that the brain is a digital computer. You can only *interpret* the brain as a digital computer. — John Searle Copy Share Image
How do we get from electrons to elections and from protons to presidents? — John Searle Copy Share Image
Where conscious subjectivity is concerned, there is no distinction between the observation and the thing observed — John Searle Copy Share Image
"Akrasia" [weakness of will] in rational beings is as common as wine in France. — John Searle Copy Share Image
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… — John Searle Copy Share Image