John Searle

Episode 138: Guest John Searle on Perception

April 25, 2016 by Mark Linsenmayer 34 Comments

We interview John about Seeing Things As They Are (2015). What is perception? Searle says that it’s not a matter of seeing a representation, which is then related to things in the real world. We see the actual objects, with no mediation. But then how can there be illusions? Well, it’s complicated, but not too complicated, just some funny terminology that this episode will teach you.

Searle lays out his theory for us and amusingly dismisses much of the history of philosophy in the first half, and then Mark, Wes, and Dylan continue the discussion to make sure we understood what was just said and chase down some threads of the conversation.

End song: “Flesh and Blood” from The MayTricks’ Happy Songs Will Bring You Down (1994).

Episode 138: John Searle Interview on Perception (Citizen Edition)

April 24, 2016 by Mark Linsenmayer 7 Comments

We interview John about Seeing Things As They Are (2015). What is perception? Searle says that it’s not a matter of seeing a representation that is then related to things in the real world. We see the actual objects, with no mediation. But then how can there be illusions? Well, it’s complicated, but not too complicated, just some funny terminology that this episode will teach you.

End song: “Flesh and Blood” from The MayTricks’ Happy Songs Will Bring You Down (1994).

New from the PEL Citizens’ Forum and Not School

December 2, 2015 by Nathan Hanks Leave a Comment

It’s December! Time for PEL Citizens to join or propose groups and discussions in the Citizens’ Forum. Guaranteed to make your holidays more enjoyable! Join an existing or proposed Not School group, or create one of your own.

Our New Citizen Feed, August Not School Doings, and a New Mayor of Not School

August 4, 2015 by Nathan Hanks 1 Comment

Have you hooked up with the PEL Citizens’ feed yet? Listened to the new recordings on C.S. Peirce, Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” and Percy Walker’s The Moviegoer? Get in on Not School groups covering Aeschylus’s Oresteia, John Searle, Isaac Asimov, Franz Fanon, and Peirce’s “How to Make Our Ideas Clear.”

Discuss Free Will (John Searle, Sam Harris) with Not School

May 13, 2014 by Billie Pritchett Leave a Comment

In light of the most recent PEL episode, we folks in PEL’s Not School will be holding a discussion on free will this month through next month. Some of the conversation will be continuous with and complementary to the PEL guys’ discussion as well as perhaps raise other issues. For the remainder of this month, we’ll be reading John Searle’s Continue Reading …

Not School Digest Jan 2013: A Bonus Quasisode

January 23, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 4 Comments

Excerpts of discussions about Deleuze & Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus, an article on emergence called “More Is Different” by Nobel Prize Winning physicist P.W. Anderson, John Searle’s Mind: A Brief Introduction, and Italo Calvino’s trippy science fantasy novel Cosmicomics.

How Brief is Too Brief? (Not School Discussion of Searle Now Posted)

January 9, 2013 by Evan Gould 5 Comments

[Editor’s Note: Here’s a guest post from Evan Gould, who was good enough to record the second discussion of the Not School Philosophy of Mind group for your pleasure. Go sign up to be a PEL Citizen so you can listen to the discussion now.] Within roughly the first half of his 2004 book Mind: A Brief Introduction, John Searle Continue Reading …

Not School: John Searle’s “Mind: A Brief Introduction” (Second Discussion)

January 8, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Continuing on 1/17/13 the discussion begun in part 1, by which time the group had read the whole book.

Not School: John Searle’s “Mind: A Brief Introduction” (First Discussion)

January 2, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Featuring Evan Gould, Bill Burgess, Alan Cook, Steven Lindsay, Daniel Cole. Recorded 1/2/13. On biological naturalism, which sees mind as a sort of “surface feature” which manifests itself in the brain only macroscopically, though its existence and activity are completely causally explained by neurobiological activity.

John Searle on Ludwig Wittgenstein

May 7, 2012 by Law Ware Twitter: @law_ware 10 Comments

I enjoy listening to philosophers I respect talk about the life and thought of other philosophers. Below is a discussion between the popularizer of philosophy Bryan Magee and the great John Searle. Watch on YouTube. Magee is an under-appreciated philosopher. His books The Philosophy of Schopenhauerand Confessions of a Philosopherhave always impressed me with their lucidity and originality. Also, his Continue Reading …

John Searle’s Course Audio Available Online

December 8, 2010 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

OpenCulture.com has posted links to three complete, free courses from the great philosophy of mind and language professor John Searle from UC-Berkeley. You may remember Searle from the Chinese Room argument as discussed in our philosophy of mind episode. These courses are on mind, language, and “philosophy of society,” which I will surely be checking out, as I had no Continue Reading …

Episode 21: What Is the Mind? (Turing, et al) (Citizens Only)

June 28, 2010 by Mark Linsenmayer 8 Comments

Discussing articles by Alan Turing, Gilbert Ryle, Thomas Nagel, John Searle, and Dan Dennett. What is this mind stuff, and how can it “be” the brain? Can computers think? What is it like to be a bat? With guest Marco Wise.

End Song: “No Mind” by Mark Lint and the Fake Johnson Trio (1998)