John Searle is the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley). He is widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind, and also for his account of social reality. He was awarded the Jean Nicod Prize and the Jovellanos Prize in 2000, and the National Humanities Medal in 2004.
Here are some key elements of Searle’s position.
- Chinese Room argument against computational theory of mind.
- Rejects Cartesian dualism and property dualism as well.
- Study of consciousness using scientific method is possible. This is very much against previously conceived notion that goes something like “consciousness is known subjectively only, thus scientific inquiry from third person perspective cannot explain consciousness.”
- Reduction of consciousness to neurobiological phenomena is not strictly possible since neurobiological phenomena loses the qualitative feel of subjectivity. One must tackle this problem directly without eliminating consciousness.
- Rejects epiphenomenalism.
Videos and part of the text from the honorable youtube power user ContraWagner
