Searle: Philosophy of Mind, lecture 25

John Searle

Philosophy of Mind, lecture 25

UC-Berkeley Philosophy 132, Spring 2011

MP3s of the entire course:

[boldfoxes]

He makes much more sense than you would here elsewhere. I suggest one should try listening to his lectures without any prejudices. Thanks Sarie, I really love and agree with your view of the world!!!

[ahmedbellankas]

Why suppose determinism is true in the first place?

[davidfost]

I'm always looking for new interesting lectures on Psychology/Philosophy, please let me know if you guys have any recommendations, would be highly appreciated

[boldfoxes]

During, you should at least tell us what you particularly don't agree about these lectures here? I would suppose we ought to make valid and constructive criticism and refrain from making reckless attacks of no aspect at all. Of course, I would assume you're simply exhibiting a strong intellectual indifference against this renowned philosopher!

[paulk]

1. if the refusal to make a choice is itself the result of an free choice, then determinism isnt about refusing to make choices.

2. the question "if it would be proven to be true, that there is no such thing as free, rational decision making, would you accept that?" does indeed ask you, whether you would freely and rationaly accept, that there is no such thing as free, rational decision making.
however, this does not show, that it is impossible to meaningfully deny the existence of free rational decision making.
for there are only 4 possible scenarios satisfying the conditional in the question (that it is proven to be true, that there is no such thing as free, rational decision making):
a) it IS proven to be true and you know, that it is proven to be true - in this case your knowing, that it is proven to be true, already presupposes your "acceptance", that is your believing in the truth of it. but since you dont DECIDE what you believe to be true, there is no sense in which you can speak of "acceptance of the prove".
b) it IS proven to be true and you DONT know, that it is. in this case theres nothing to accept or reject for you anyway.
c) it IS NOT proven to be true and you know, that it is not. in this case too, theres no prove to accept or reject.
d) it IS NOT proven to be true and you DONT know, that it is not. again, no prove to accept or reject.
thus, the question is just unsensical. there is no meaningful answer to it. for there simply couldnt be such a thing as the acceptance or rejection of an prove. acceptance and rejection both presuppose decision making but there is no decision making when it comes to something being a prove or not or knowing that something is an prove or not respectively.

[ahmedbellankas]

If smith points a gun at john and smith says to john, either you j or i Will blow your head,
Suppose that john can j or k, suppose john's preferences are :first stay alive, second k
It follows that john will j, but john j'ed freely even if he didn't like it.