Conversations with History: John R. Searle
Conversations wіth History аnd Host Harry Kreisler welcome UC Berkeley Professor οf Philosophy John R. Searle whο talks аbουt thе work οf a philosopher, critical thinking, аnd education οf thе Free Speech Movement. Rυn: Conversations wіth History [Public Affairs] [Shοw ID: 7796]
How does he warrant his view of scientific realism?
Dimentia is nothing to laugh at!
@polymath7
Enlighten me. I find his thought experiment rather solid, really.
I’ll tell you.
To start, his Chinese Room is one of the most boneheaded, effortlessly refuted thought experiments in all of Western intellectual history.
*smile*
Would you like me to tell you why?
I have no thought why any respectable university would bother top keep this clown around.
Searle has a absolutely incorrect concept of philosophy — “you have to know everything to do philosophy”. “It’s murder.” Yuk. “Constantly fighting with apparently contradictory thoughts.” “How can matter be conscious?” You could as well question, “How can matter be un-resolute?”
I laughed my ass off at minute 7. He regathers himself, belches furtively, and answers the question. Legendary.
brilliant work!
WTF is he wearing?
@jonobrow
Would you mind being more specific about what it is about Searle’s philosophical views that you find insane?
I got a run of lectures by him from The Teaching Company and when he started explaining recursive breakdown it cracked me up every time he said “stupid homunculi”
Dustin Hoffman could play this dude
this is magnificent. like searle!
Than kyou Mr A Chalmers for your original thoughts and donations.
man, that music at the initiation was rad…
I like Searle. His actual philosophical beliefs are insane (Chinese Room amergument, combination of a first-person ontology with a belief in the causal closure of the material world), but he’s a fantastic speaker, both in clarity and content.
Aww, andrea. Still holding off on giving something other than a holding response? Is that because you’ve reached the limits of your lecture notes now?
21:40, but philosophy is not just conceptual clarification it is also reflection. even if knowledge solves a problem there is still the opportunity for reflection. Thus philosophy does not ever really ‘close up shop’.
biological naturalism rocks
Edit, Typo: It should read ” To disprove THE statement that something can neither be …” and not any statement “A statement”
A few more for the road:
“There are trivial truths & there are fantastic truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly fake. The opposite of a fantastic truth is also right.”
-Neils Bohr
“Knowledge has made us gods even before we are creditable of being men.”
- Jean Rostand
Now , adding distinct policy or laws applicable at different steps does remove the fallacious result , trying to limit inference to a “step” context doesn’t help either; The outcome being a cluster of axioms that never culminates in a conclusion that’s derived from them. Again , perhaps i’ve misinterpreted what you meant ,but it seems misguided at first glance.
Of course none of this would matter if knowledge wasn’t deemed above philosophical scrutiny , Which is the crux of my arguments
-Concord
To this end , i’m not sure what you mean by “proof step”, but i suspect that you misunderstood my doubt to the falsification of ?(p AND ?p), so it may not matter much. Ill restate; To potentially disprove a statement that can neither be right and fake at the same time, one would need to assume ?(p AND ?p) as both a premise and conclusion : circular logic. Alternatively one could simply go on an endless regress without ever reaching a conclusion, like your “proof step” i believe.
If one takes empiricism , math and falsification at face value , they could not justify implicitly their own merit, (for the reasons we covered). More so when considering paraconsistency & rejecting the principle of explosion; Consequentially one needs philosophical inquiries, set of laws & preconditions to vindicate , in any meaningful manner , the scientific method; Hence, i don’t agree that philosophical demarcations & their definitions are simply vanity or less useful vis-à-vis knowledge .
But then , wouldn’t a paraconsistency make falsification redundant? One could argue that since both a statement and its exclusion could never equate falsehood ,nothing could ever be falsified. Moreover i fail to see how rejecting Explosion could rectify the problem; In fact it seems to cast further doubts on your original position that Mathematical , Empirical & Falsifiable knowledge (Or provisional truths) are not dependent on philosophical meddling, which seems necessary at this point.
Dear silversalvo,
I keep thinking about your answers. So here’s another holding response, at the same time as I brood over.
Yes, a demonstration of the invalidity of, say, the rule of non-contradiction, would itself be potentially disprovable. Which is why I do not mark out a proof as an line of reasoning proceeding from indubitable premises.
Not merely that, but such a demonstration would be itself potentially contradictory, if the proof-course of action relied upon a step involving the same rule of non-contradiction.