John Searle

John Searle (1932- ), American philosopher of mind and language. Born in Denver, Colorado, Searle attended the University of Wisconsin and, as a Rhodes Scholar in 1952, the University of Oxford. Since 1959 he has taught at the University of California at Berkeley, and is Mills Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Language there.

The central focus of Searle's contribution to philosophy is his theory of intentionality, which is applicable to his account of both mind and language. To say that the mind is intentional is to hold that activities of the mind such as perceiving, desiring, or imagining are directed at objects, for example, “I see the house” or “I want ice-cream”, and that there is a clear intention towards the object. In this aspect, the mind is fundamentally different from any artificial machine, no matter how sophisticated. Searle's renowned example of the “Chinese room” helps explain his view. In the example he describes a non-Chinese person who is inside a room using or moving around a set of Chinese characters, according to a set of instructions, to answer questions. However, simply moving the characters around, even if arriving at the correct answers, doesn't necessarily prove that the manipulator understands anything. To have understanding the person (or system) must also use intentional concepts. This is the realm of the mind alone. Searle thus stresses the idea of consciousness and the subjective character of the mind, which he says cannot be explained away by those who prefer a materialistic theory. In light of this it is not surprising that Searle is strongly critical of many theories of artificial intelligence.

Because of his important contributions, Searle remains one of the foremost American philosophers. A polished exposition of his views can be found in The Rediscovery of Mind (1992).