John Searle (Philosophy Now) - Softcover

Fotion, Nick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1902683099 ISBN 13: 9781902683096

Publisher: Routledge, 2000

Synopsis

Direct, combative and wide-ranging, John Searle's philosophy has made fundamental and lasting contributions to thinking in language, mind, knowledge, truth and the nature of social reality. His account of language based on speech-acts, that mind is intentional, and the Chinese Room Argument, are just some of his most famous contributions to philosophical thinking. In this - the first introduction to John Searle's philosophy - Nick Fotion provides clear and assured exposition of Searles' ideas, while also testing and exploring their implications. The book begins by examining Searle's work on the philosophy of language: his analysis of speech acts such as promising, his taxonomy of speech acts and the wider range of indirect speech acts and metaphorical uses of language. The book then moves on to cover the philosophy of mind and outlines Searle's ideas on international states. It introduces his notions of 'background' and 'network', his claims for the often unrecognized importance of consciousness, and examines his attacks on other philosophical accounts of mind, such as materialism, functionalism and strong AI. The final section examines Searle's later work on the construction of social reality and concludes with more general reflections on Searle's position vis-a-vis ontology, epistemology, scepticism and the doctrine of 'external realism'.

About this title

Review

"A well-organized overview of Searle's philosophical work at a level that is suitable for upper-division undergraduates or beginning graduate students. The greatest virtue of the book is its clarity and responsible presentation of the material." - Sean Kelly, Princeton University

From the Back Cover

"This book presents a generally accurate and well-organized overview of Searle's philosophical work at a level that is suitable for upper-division undergraduates or beginning graduate students. The greatest virtue of the book is its clarity and responsible presentation of the material. There is no competing book on the market, and there will be demand due to the general interest in Searle's work not only among philosophers but also among literary theorists, art historians, and a broader range of humanist scholars."--Sean D. Kelly, Princeton University

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1902683099
• ISBN 13: 9781902683096
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272