Talk:John Searle

Personal Beliefs
I saw somebody had categorized Searle under Atheism without providing any details or source. (ex: Category:21st-century agnostics). I came across this primary source youtube video where he clearly states that he's an Agnostic, not a pure Atheist, and I updated the bottom category section accordingly. If you have any concerns, you may respond to me here. Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT2O81SIVbY (User talk:Ari777m) 19:35, 04 July 2018 (PST)

Another Plea for an Improved Derrida-Searle Section
The Searle-Derrida section desperately needs editing. It is written with an obviously Derridean Slant. It overly relies on jargon as well. A better section would mention that there's fairly widespread disagreement about what happened in the 'debate' and more importantly, that just about everyone thinks neither of them understood the other. Reading the current section, however, one would think Searle totally misunderstood Derrida and not vice versa. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:14D:8000:90F0:C5CD:E1DA:D4E9:543F (talk) 14:44, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

I propose to move the debate-with-Derrida coverage to a new section at the end
I don't like deleting stuff, but the verdict of the banner added 18 months ago is unarguable: "This section may contain an excessive amount of intricate detail that may interest only a particular audience. Please help by spinning off or relocating any relevant information, and removing excessive detail that may be against Wikipedia's inclusion policy." Accordingly, I would propose to kick it down to the end because it is seriously overbalancing the overall coverage.

I have also identified two further problems with the article. The easier error to correct is mis-attributing "direction of fit" to Anscombe rather than Austin, if Searle himself is to be believed:

The terminology of "direction of fit" was invented by John L Austin but the best example to illustrate the distinction was given by G E M [Elizabeth] Anscombe.

- in John R Searle: "Mind, Language and Society" (1999)

Fixing the other will probably need the attention of a Wikipedian with access to Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour (ISSN 1468-5914, apparently), but this existing sentence about Searle's Construction of Social Reality cannot be right:

Searle also places language at the foundation of the construction of social reality while Lawson believes that community formation necessarily precedes the development of language and therefore there must be the possibility for non-linguistic social structure formation.

Nothing Tony Lawson is represented as saying here contradicts Searle's actual account, which is that "language or at least a language-like capacity for symbolization" is required for the construction of *institutional* reality, ie not merely social reality. For Searle, hyenas hunting a lion share a social reality. Hyenas don't have language so the rest follows and there is no contradiction, which means the article cannot correctly be identifying the second of two points apparently at issue (though the sentence before it, about the first point, does look OK as far as I can tell).

Merely changing "social reality" to "institutional reality" in the offending sentence *might* correct the problem but is at least as likely to be unfair to Lawson, whose account I have not read. -Soap 92.11.145.91 (talk) 07:19, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

Is there still a John Searle Center for Social Ontology or has the center's name been changed? Christofurio (talk) 12:13, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Recent changes
I have reverted a series of recent changes. Among other things, these changes placed the section on recent accusations against Searle at the very beginning of the article, before any of the other sections, which seems inappropriate and without justification. The reverted changes also gave sections titles like "Attacks on affordable housing", and "Right-wing politics", which is also inappropriate. Such section titles make the article read like a series of personal attacks on Searle, and are unacceptable, per WP:NPOV. Freeknowledgecreator (talk) 02:37, 31 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Objecting to rent control is not the same thing as "attacks on affordable housing." Opinions vary, of course, but there is a legitimate debate about rent control. Many housing advocates assert that rent control exacerbates housing shortages in the long run, increasing the price of both rents and home purchases. Additionally, the article seems to suggest, without evidence that Searle was, or is, a predatory landlord. It is not uncommon for U.C. Berkeley professors of his generation to own rental properties.
 * Regarding the "Searle decision," Searle was not the only plaintiff, he was one of many. He is not a lawyer and did not write the petition. The passage that says, "The court described the debate as a "morass of political invective, ad hominem attack, and policy argument" unfairly implies that Searle, personally held such misguided and objectionable views. If you read the passage carefully, you see that this statement refers to "the debate," likely including various parties on both sides, not just Searle. Searle did not necessarily make any such statements. This passage is a non-sequitir, compared to the previous sentence. Searle did argue that in this case, the landlords were deprived off due process. This is not a sensational legal argument and it should not be sensationalized.
 * In short, these passages seem to have been written by authors who dislike Searle because of his opposition to rent control in Berkeley, and for other political reasons. They are not even-handed and they do not belong at the beginning of the article. They seem intended to prejudice the reader against Searle and his work.
 * I guess I should add that tbe article's description of Searle's views regarding the 9/11 attack are also prejudicial. Support for a signaled support for "a more aggressive neoconservative interventionist foreign policy" does not make him a colonialist or a morally suspect person. Such views were, and remain common, among both conservatives and progressives, notwithstanding the misguided invasion of Iraq. I didn't look up the source, but this passage appears to suggest that Searle described his own views as "neoconservative," "aggressive," and so on. This is unlikely. Once again, this passage is prejudicial.
 * The article begins with Searle's support of the Free Speech Movement at U.C. Berkeley, in the early 1960s. Some readers may find this admirable, but it is not particularly related to the large body of his teaching and philosophical publications. Searle is one of the most admired and influential philosophers of the 20th and early 21st century, regardless of what his personal imperfections might have been. The tone, balance, structure and sequence of this article should reflect that. Bigvalleytim (talk) 19:02, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Edit: A few minutes later... I do not normally edit wikipedia articles. I will leave the task of editing the Searle article to others more capable and experienced than me. I hope those others will consider the foregoing comments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bigvalleytim (talk • contribs) 19:05, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Redundancy and clarity
, hello. I see you disagree with the edits I made. Hopefully, you agree the current page is just garbage. It is poorly written, redundant, and just not clear. Let's work together to fix it. Writing this post is always the first requirement when editors disagree, which I see you already know. Granite07 (talk) 04:51, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Mistranslation of Derrida
The translation there is nothing outside of texts of (Il n'y a pas de 'hors-texte') is wrong. "there is no outside-text" would be a better translation, but would require some explantation. I don't know of a good source tho

really the whole debate should be spun out. Some2Guy (talk) 20:49, 21 August 2020 (UTC)


 * "Nothing outside text" and "no outside text" are completely different propositions. Could this debate be entirely over mistranslations? --ExperiencedArticleFixer (talk) 11:34, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I ment the Searle–Derrida debate section should be spun out. Especially since the Jacques Derrida page has nearly the exact same paragraph, just a little more detailed. Some2Guy (talk) 14:09, 4 June 2021 (UTC)