28 quotes
Dualism makes the problem insoluble; materialism denies the existence of any phenomenon to study, and hence of any problem.
Consciousness and Language (2002)
The Intentionality of the mind not only creates the possibility of meaning, but limits its forms.
Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind (1983)
Materialism ends up denying the existence of any irreducible subjective qualitative states of sentience or awareness.
Consciousness and Language (2002)
You do not understand your own tradition if you do not see it in relation to others.
"Akrasia" [weakness of will] in rational beings is as common as wine in France.
Whatever is referred to must exist. Let us call this the axiom of existence.
Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (1969)
Where conscious subjectivity is concerned, there is no distinction between the observation and the thing observed.
An utterance can have Intentionality, just as a belief has Intentionality, but whereas the Intentionality of the belief is intrinsic the Intentionality of the utterance is derived.
Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind (1983)
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.
The ascription of an unconscious intentional phenomenon to a system implies that the phenomenon is in principle accessible to consciousness.
I will argue that in the literal sense the programmed computer understands what the car and the adding machine understand, namely, exactly nothing.
Minds, Brains and Programs (1980)
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.
Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (1969)
You need to know enough of the natural sciences so that you are not a stranger in the world.
The Storm Over the University (1990)
In many cases it is a matter for decision and not a simple matter of fact whether x understands y; and so on.
Minds, Brains and Programs (1980)
The sense in which an automatic door "understands instructions" from its photoelectric cell is not at all the sense in which I understand English.
Minds, Brains and Programs (1980)
Where questions of style and exposition are concerned I try to follow a simple maxim: if you can’t say it clearly you don’t understand it yourself.
Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind (1983)
I want to block some common misunderstandings about "understanding": In many of these discussions one finds a lot of fancy footwork about the word "understanding."
Minds, Brains and Programs (1980)
My car and my adding machine understand nothing: they are not in that line of business.
Minds, Brains and Programs (1980)
One of the most depressing things about educated people today is that so few of them, even among professional intellectuals, are able to follow the steps of a simple logical argument.
The Storm Over the University (1990)
We often attribute "understanding" and other cognitive predicates by metaphor and analogy to cars, adding machines, and other artifacts, but nothing is proved by such attributions.
Minds, Brains and Programs (1980)