John Searle

Agora

John Searle

1932–2025

Pierwsze przybliżeniecelowe uproszczenie – portret mówi więcej

Komputer manipulujący symbolami rozumie je tak samo mało, jak osoba stosująca reguły w chińskim pokoju – umysły to coś więcej niż programy.

Umiejscowienie

Filozofia analityczna · Ameryka Północna · Język, Umysł i świadomość, Społeczeństwo i historia

Chiński pokój: składnia to nie semantyka – argument przeciw silnej sztucznej inteligencji.

Kluczowe idee

Chiński pokój
Intencjonalność
Ontologia społeczna

Nauczyciele: John Langshaw Austin, Peter Frederick Strawson

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Wpływ

Pod wpływem 5

Gottlob Frege

pod wpływem
Searle developed Frege’s view that proper names have a sense into a cluster theory of names (‘Proper Names’, 1958) and defended a Fregean account of reference (Intentionality, 1983). J. R. Searle, “Proper Names”, Mind 67 (1958); Speech Acts (1969); Intentionality (1983)
Źródło: także w InPhO · InPhO
Gottlob Frege › 1848–1925
Ludwig Wittgenstein

pod wpływem ✓
Searle acknowledged the later Wittgenstein, especially On Certainty, as a source of his thesis that intentional states work only against a non-representational Background (Intentionality, 1983). J. R. Searle, Intentionality (1983); The Construction of Social Reality (1995); L. Wittgenstein, Über Gewißheit (publ. 1969)
Źródło: także w Wikidanych · Wikidata · InPhO
Ludwig Wittgenstein › 1889–1951
John Langshaw Austin nauczyciel(ka)

nauczyciel(ka)
At Oxford, where he studied from 1952 as a Rhodes Scholar, Searle was taught by Austin as well as by Strawson, Berlin and Hampshire; his Speech Acts (1969) developed Austin’s theory, although he said Austin’s attention to linguistic minutiae left him unmoved. J. R. Searle, interview with T. Crane, CRASSH, University of Cambridge (9 June 2014)
Źródło: szkic AI
John Langshaw Austin › 1911–1960
Paul Grice

pod wpływem
Searle adopted Grice’s analysis of meaning through the intended recognition of intentions but held that it must include linguistic conventions (Speech Acts, 1969). J. R. Searle, Speech Acts (1969); H. P. Grice, “Meaning”, Philosophical Review 66 (1957); SEP “Paul Grice”
Źródło: szkic AI
Paul Grice › 1913–1988
Peter Frederick Strawson nauczyciel(ka)

nauczyciel(ka)
Strawson was Searle’s tutor at Oxford; Searle credited him without hesitation with having truly taught him how to do philosophy, recalled tutorials for which his essay was due a day in advance, and the two became close friends. J. R. Searle, interview with T. Crane, CRASSH, University of Cambridge (9 June 2014)
Źródło: szkic AI
Peter Frederick Strawson › 1919–2006

Krytyka

Krytyka ze strony 3

Saul Kripke

krytyka ze strony
Kripke rejected Searle’s cluster theory of names: no weighted set of descriptions fixes reference, since the bearer might satisfy none of them (Naming and Necessity, 1972/1980). S. Kripke, Naming and Necessity (1972; 1980), Lecture I; J. R. Searle, “Proper Names”, Mind 67 (1958)
Źródło: szkic AI
Saul Kripke › 1940–2022
Daniel Dennett

krytyka ze strony
Dennett called Searle’s Chinese Room an ‘intuition pump’ that directs attention to the rule-following man instead of the whole system (‘The Milk of Human Intentionality’, 1980). D. C. Dennett, “The Milk of Human Intentionality”, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3 (1980); Consciousness Explained (1991), ch. 14
Źródło: szkic AI
Daniel Dennett › 1942–2024
David Chalmers

krytyka ze strony
Chalmers rejected Searle’s Chinese Room argument: by the principle of organisational invariance, a system with the right functional organisation would be conscious (The Conscious Mind, 1996, ch. 9). D. J. Chalmers, The Conscious Mind (1996), chs. 7, 9; J. R. Searle, “Consciousness and the Philosophers”, New York Review of Books, 6 March 1997, and the ensuing exchange
Źródło: szkic AI
David Chalmers › ur. 1966

Krytykuje 2

Alan Turing

krytykuje
Searle’s Chinese Room targeted the Turing test as a criterion of understanding: a program passing it by symbol manipulation need not understand anything (‘Minds, Brains, and Programs’, 1980). J. R. Searle, “Minds, Brains, and Programs”, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3 (1980), 417–457; A. M. Turing, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”, Mind 59 (1950)
Źródło: szkic AI
Alan Turing › 1912–1954
Jacques Derrida

krytykuje
Searle replied that Derrida’s ‘Signature Event Context’ misreads Austin: iterability does not undermine intention, and setting aside parasitic speech is a research strategy (‘Reiterating the Differences’, 1977). J. R. Searle, “Reiterating the Differences: A Reply to Derrida”, Glyph 1 (1977), 198–208; J. Derrida, “Limited Inc a b c …”, Glyph 2 (1977)
Źródło: szkic AI
Jacques Derrida › 1930–2004

Dzieła

1969Czynności mowy
Usystematyzowanie teorii aktów mowy Austina.
1977Reiterating the Differences: A Reply to Derrida (Powtarzając różnice: odpowiedź Derridzie)
Ostra odpowiedź Searle’a na lekturę Austina przez Derridę.
1980Minds, Brains, and Programs (Umysły, mózgi i programy; „Chiński pokój”)
Manipulowanie symbolami nie jest rozumieniem.

Stanowisko

Searle systematised Austin’s speech act theory, showing how promises, assertions and orders follow constitutive rules. He then turned to the mind: intentionality – the directedness of thoughts toward the world – is a biological feature of brains, as real as digestion. His most famous argument is the Chinese Room: a person who follows rules for manipulating Chinese symbols without understanding Chinese could produce perfect answers, yet would understand nothing. Hence computers that only process syntax do not thereby possess semantics, and “strong AI” is false. Searle did not deny that a machine could think – brains, he said, are machines – only that running a program could ever be enough; critics answer that the whole system, not the person in the room, might understand. Later he explained how social reality – money, marriages, states – arises from collective acceptance of the form “X counts as Y in context C.”

Życie i kontekst

Searle was born in Denver in 1932 and studied at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, where he was influenced by J. L. Austin and Peter Strawson. From 1959 he taught at the University of California, Berkeley, for most of his career. He became widely known beyond philosophy through public debates on artificial intelligence and his controversy with Jacques Derrida. In 2019 the university revoked his emeritus status after finding that he had violated its policies on sexual harassment and retaliation. He died in 2025.