Not who you're looking for? Others named John Searle: American philosopher (1932–2025)
“The problem posed by indirect speech acts is the problem of how it is possible for the speaker to say one thing and mean that but also to mean something else.”
“Where conscious subjectivity is concerned, there is no distinction between the observation and the thing observed.”
“Whatever is referred to must exist. Let us call this the axiom of existence.”
“The assertion fallacy ... is the fallacy of confusing the conditions for the performance of the speech act of assertion with the analysis of the meaning of particular words occurring in certain assertions.”
“It seems to me obvious that infants and many animals that do not in any ordinary sense have a language or perform speech acts nonetheless have Intentional states. Only someone in the grip of a philosophical theory would deny that small babies can literally be said to want milk and that dogs want to be let out or believe that their master is at the door.”
“The Intentionality of the mind not only creates the possibility of meaning, but limits its forms.”
Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.
