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John Searle: The Philosophy of Language - Sane Society — Transcript

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0:00[Music]
0:19[Music]
0:26[Music]
0:34hello and welcome tonight we're speaking
0:35about the philosophy of language with me
0:38is professor John surl Professor surl
0:40has been teaching at the University of
0:42California at Berkeley since
0:451959 Professor surl thank you for coming
0:47thanks for having me all right well
0:49you've been a professor at the
0:50University of California at Berkeley for
0:53how many years 50 I guess it's 53 years
0:56I came here in
0:581959 and uh it adds up I've been a
1:00full-time Professor here since then do
1:02you hold the oldtime record I think I do
1:05I don't you see in the old days people
1:07were forced to retire when they got to
1:08be 70 years old now they figured out
1:11that's unconstitutional a bunch of old
1:13people in the Supreme Court figured if
1:14you can't fire people because they're
1:16black or female you can't fire them
1:17because they're over the age of 70
1:19anyway I can keep going indefinitely so
1:21I as they can't force me to retire and
1:23I'm having too much fun teaching I'm not
1:25going to retire great you're working on
1:28three books right now yes I am right
1:30youve plowed a lot of original ground on
1:32the philosophy of language starting with
1:34speech acts yes that was my first
1:37book now another of your books many of
1:40your books deal with Consciousness and
1:42then the whole Mind Body problem quote
1:44yes well I got from language I thought
1:46well my theory of language really makes
1:49heavy use of the mind because I see
1:51talking as performing intentional gold
1:54directed speech acts and that means they
1:55got to have some mental content so I
1:57thought I got to pay my due someday and
1:59I'm going to write book about the mind
2:01and then I discovered there's a whole a
2:04a garbage pit of bad philosophical views
2:07going on about the mind and I started
2:08getting debates about them and that went
2:11on to a whole bunch of other books that
2:12I wrote about the mind and then I got
2:14interested in society and I've written
2:15some books about Society what's the
2:16nature of
2:18society the Mind Body problem it's not
2:20quite the same as the stomach digestion
2:22problem no it's not but it ought to be
2:25that is we have this we have two
2:27conflicting Traditions both of which are
2:29s of confusion one tradition says
2:33there's God the soul and immortality and
2:36they're not part of the physical world
2:38and there's another tradition that says
2:41science is materialistic and there's no
2:44place in science for the mind now I
2:46think both these Traditions are mistaken
2:48I I think the mind is just a function of
2:50the brain it's the mental processes are
2:53processes that are produced by brain
2:54processes and they exist in the brain so
2:57I like to make this boring analogy
2:58roughly speaking I the mind is to the
3:01brain as digestion is to the stomach
3:03it's just something that that happens
3:06and it happens by natural biological
3:08processes but we know all of those
3:12natural biological processes for the
3:14digestion in the stomach but we cannot
3:16find or locate the part of the brain
3:19that generates what we call
3:20Consciousness well we're getting closer
3:22to that uh I was in the president's
3:24decade of the brain in the 1990s and we
3:27didn't solve the problems but we got a
3:29lot closer we know a whole lot more
3:31about the brain than we did when I first
3:34got interested in these issues about 20
3:35or 30 years ago still you're right we
3:38don't know how exactly the brain causes
3:42Consciousness uh we know quite a lot
3:44about specific processes like how the
3:47visual signal is processed from the time
3:49the photons hit the retina until it goes
3:51through all the parts of the brain and
3:53gets into the cortex but how exactly do
3:55you get over the hump from neuron
3:57firings to Consciousness that's a fast
3:59any question and we don't know the
4:01solution to that at least not yet but
4:03we're Lots closer than we
4:05were it it's amazing to think that all
4:08of the various physical Sensations that
4:10we experience uh the taste of something
4:13or the the sight or the feel of it it's
4:15all neurons firing at different frequeny
4:17it is a stunning fact that the enormous
4:20variety The Incredible variety of our
4:22conscious life everything from having a
4:24stomach ache to I don't know pick your
4:26favorite feeling the enst of
4:27post-industrial man under late cap Capal
4:29ISM all of that is caused by variable
4:32rates of neuron firings relative to
4:35specific neuronal architectures that's
4:37an amazing fact but as far as we know
4:39that's how it
4:40works it seems that Neuroscience is is a
4:44field that's exciting all the sciences
4:46that the
4:47psychology uh uh sort of ends there and
4:51philosophy uh ends there and and um
4:54there's a lot of uh uh
4:57interdisciplinary um in the Sciences now
5:00that I mean outside of quantum mechanics
5:02and
5:03some cosmology some exciting areas of
5:06physics I think the most exciting area
5:08of the science right now is neuroscience
5:11because here is this incredibly complex
5:14mechanism and we don't know how it works
5:17but we're finding out how it works we're
5:19finding out how memories are laid down
5:21in your brain we're even finding out why
5:23alcohol makes you drunk I so we've got
5:26all of this exciting areas of research
5:28going on and we are making a lot of
5:30progress however as I said the big Gulf
5:33and we haven't solved it yet is how
5:35exactly do neuron neuron neuronal
5:37processes cause Consciousness that's a
5:40beautiful question um and I hope it's
5:42solved in my lifetime but um excuse me
5:45may take longer do you um do you think
5:49it's a fair statement to call the brain
5:51the most complicated structure in the
5:52known universe well people always say
5:55that but you see complexity always is
5:58always relative to the the assignment of
6:00some kind of criteria for judging
6:03complexity is the Amazon
6:05jungle complex that's not really a fully
6:08meaningful question and I think the the
6:11problem with invoking complexity the
6:12brain is complex but for all we know the
6:15mechanisms by which Consciousness is
6:18produced in simple organisms may be
6:21simple mechanisms and it may be that
6:23that's the key to understanding human
6:25consciousness so if you think of DNA and
6:28how it produces the enormous complex
6:30variety of human phenotypes yes they are
6:33incredibly complex and the processes are
6:35complex all the same the structure of
6:38DNA is fairly simple and easily
6:41understandable so there there's a sort
6:43of fature of this discussion where
6:45people invoke complexity as kind of a
6:47magic term they get dazzled by the
6:49incredible complexity of the brain it is
6:51complex but we it doesn't follow from
6:53that that the mechanisms by which
6:55Consciousness are is produced uh are
6:58themselves extremely comp Lex mechanisms
7:00and there for all we know that lots of
7:02simple organisms may be conscious and if
7:05so their Consciousness may be produced
7:07by fairly simple
7:08mechanisms Chomsky talked about discret
7:11Infinity yeah um and uh you see that in
7:16language you see that from a very simple
7:18alphabet you get the amazing you get
7:20Shakespeare from the morse code you get
7:22Shakespeare yes um well chsky is right
7:25about that that we have a discrete set
7:28and a finite set of devices words
7:31morphemes and the and the Capa and rules
7:34for combining them and that gives us an
7:37infinite capacity and a capacity to
7:39generate an infinite number of different
7:42sentences and that's an extraordinary
7:44property of human languages there's no
7:46limit to the number of new things that
7:48we can say would you say that that
7:50property is unique to language or do you
7:52see it in biology well you see it in the
7:54DNA with a very limited number of base
7:56pairs you have all of the incredible the
7:58capacity for infinite generative
8:00capacity is not confined to language you
8:02can do it with with DNA or all all sorts
8:04of other combinatorial mechanisms but
8:06what's interesting about um language is
8:09not just that you have this infinite
8:11capacity I mean you could do that with
8:13infinite capacity 1 2 3 4 five but
8:16you've got compositionality that is to
8:18say in addition to the generative
8:21feature you've got the fact that you can
8:23figure out the meaning of the sentence
8:25just by knowing the meanings of the
8:27words and how they're combined in the
8:28sentence so I think the generativity is
8:32exciting but what makes it exciting is
8:34it's combined with composition you
8:37understand the meaning of sentences
8:38you've never heard before just because
8:40you know the meanings of the parts and
8:42how they're composed how they're
8:43combined in the sentence and intent and
8:46the well you can you see they have to be
8:48produced with an intent and what you do
8:51when you understand the sense is you
8:53understand the intention behind its
8:55utterance so this is the remarkable
8:57capacity about human language not only
8:59is we can um convey our intentional
9:03meanings to other people but we can have
9:06all kinds of intentional meanings all
9:08kinds of thought contents that we
9:09couldn't possibly have without language
9:11so language doesn't just describe a
9:14pre-existing State of Affairs a
9:17pre-existing set of thoughts but it
9:19enables us to have thoughts that we
9:21couldn't possibly have without language
9:23it's like stepping stones to cognition
9:25well it's more than just stepping stones
9:27it is a it is forms of cognition that
9:31are made possible by language that
9:33wouldn't be possible without it so for
9:35example you can't do mathematics if you
9:38don't have a language and indeed now I
9:40introduce another element that's writing
9:41you really can't do complex mathematics
9:44unless you have a written language and
9:46now just to add something to that much
9:49of our social reality of the reality of
9:52money and property and government and
9:55marriage and universities and cocktail
9:57parties and television programs that
9:59created by language which writing yeah
10:02well and and well especially written
10:04language you can have simple forms of
10:06institutional reality you can have uh
10:08forms of private property and and simple
10:11U governmental relations but to have
10:14complex forms of the kind that we have I
10:16mean think of our pres presidential
10:18election you cannot have that without
10:20written language the the phenomena are
10:22too complex to be conveyed just in an
10:25oral culture lasting commitments
10:28marriage yes
10:30now here's something that language gives
10:31us that no other animal has we have
10:34forms of commitment that are carried by
10:37language that pre-linguistic animals
10:40cannot have so for example a guy asked
10:43me to come to downtown Berkeley I and
10:46have a television talk and that gives me
10:49a reason for doing it which is
10:51independent of my other inclinations see
10:54my dog is very intelligent but he cannot
10:56make promises he can't undertake those
10:59sorts of commitments he cannot reason
11:01with obligations and operate with with
11:04commitments of various kinds so we've
11:06got not just infinite generative
11:08capacity and creative capacity for
11:10creating thought but we create a social
11:13reality and we create a set of binding
11:17relationships among human beings so I
11:20think in a way language is the glue that
11:22holds human civilization together
11:24because it creates all of these bonds it
11:27creates all of these desire independent
11:29reasons for actions like obligations
11:31commitments requirements duties and all
11:33the rest of
11:35it with all this power of language there
11:38comes a danger too of becoming too
11:41abstract yeah not keeping your feet on
11:43the ground referring to referring to
11:45referring well that's right um and the
11:48problem with um language I like your
11:50metaphor the feet on the ground because
11:52it's very important to remember to stay
11:55close to the real world and in my
11:57discipline philosophy there's always a
12:00temptation to go off into outer space
12:03into hot air and in fact there are
12:05various movements that make a career out
12:07of that there was something you're
12:09probably old enough to remember this but
12:10there was something called
12:12postmodernism uh and there there was a
12:14lot of hot air where they said well
12:16maybe all of reality is created by
12:18language and everything is a text and so
12:20on no language has to stay close to
12:22reality I if it is to be fully
12:25meaningful and if its meaning is to be
12:27comprehensible but and this is what
12:28makes it fascinating much of the reality
12:31that language has to stay close to is
12:34itself created by language so the
12:36reality of government the fact the
12:39reality of the election that we're
12:41having the reality of the candidacy and
12:43the voting all of those are linguistic
12:46phenomena they're created by language
12:48and yet in creating them in creating for
12:51example the office of the presidency and
12:54making a guy president of the United
12:55States we use semantics to create a
12:59power are set of powers that go beyond
13:01semantics so this again a remarkable
13:04property about language is that it
13:06serves to describe reality and we have
13:09to stay close to the non-linguistic
13:12reality that it describes but it also
13:14creates a reality the reality of instit
13:17what I call institutional facts like
13:19money and government and private
13:20property it creates a reality which we
13:23can then go on to describe in objective
13:27terms what about the danger in our
13:29social reality of the abstraction of
13:31money and the way that it runs people
13:34and you know it seems to be running the
13:36world and it's like an abstraction
13:38that's gotten away from us uh there are
13:39lots of dangers we can't control one is
13:43the powers that we create with these
13:45cognitive mechanisms can run out of
13:48control and one of the fascinating
13:51things that happened in the past
13:54decade was uh that the all my economists
13:57of friends have told me we'd never have
13:58another economic crisis like the 1930s
14:01because we know too much economics well
14:03it turns out we didn't know so much it
14:05got out of hand and of course A lot of
14:07people are now saying well I predicted
14:08that this was going to happen well of
14:10course I predicted that there was a
14:12housing bubble anybody could see that
14:13even in the city of Burkley but nobody
14:16quite was able to foresee what in fact
14:19happened or or in fact get a a correct
14:23solution to the problems so um I I don't
14:27want to give the idea that these
14:29institutional facts that we create with
14:32language are all sweetness and light on
14:34the contrary you can just as you can
14:36create Democrats and Republicans you can
14:38create Communists and fascists you can
14:40create all kinds of evil mechanisms
14:43using the linguistic devices so the our
14:46capacity to use language in all sorts of
14:49creative ways doesn't yet give us the
14:52moral constraints those have to be added
14:55to the to the power of language we have
14:58to see how to constrain our use of
15:01language with morality and intelligence
15:03so it doesn't get out of hand do you
15:06think that it's a technology that we
15:08fully understand enough to do the
15:10technology of language yes no I don't
15:12think it is no I I think we're still
15:14working on it um but we have made a lot
15:16of progress now I I think that some of
15:19that progress is going in the wrong
15:21direction I mean this isn't the time to
15:23go into a discussion of chomsky's
15:25linguistics but I think he neglects the
15:27fact that sentences are used to perform
15:31speech acts and a lot of the syntactical
15:33facts about what's what goes in a
15:35sentence and what doesn't go those can
15:37only be explained if you understand how
15:39it's used so we still don't have an
15:41adequate theory of the relation of
15:44structure and function in natural
15:46languages there are lots of theories
15:48about structure and I have tried to
15:50develop theories about function but what
15:52I would like to see and I'm not enough
15:55of a syn tactician to do this myself is
15:58a serious analysis of the relationship
16:00between structure and function I think
16:02that would be a fascinating study see
16:04here's the Paradox of of Chomsky admir
16:07his work enormously but he's had now
16:09more than 50 years and there are no set
16:13of results that competence that
16:15competent linguists are prepared to
16:16agree on it's not like other Sciences
16:19see in biology we've got results that
16:21competent biologists agree on that's not
16:23really true in linguistics that's still
16:25divided into these Waring factions do
16:28you agree with ch that language is a
16:30facility that we innately have like
16:32Vision yes I I think that's right that
16:35we have this ability but that doesn't
16:37really say very much there's a friend of
16:38mine Dan Everett who uh found a language
16:41in the Amazon basin where he went and
16:44lived with those people for 30 years and
16:46he found a language there that doesn't
16:47follow chomsky's rules Chomsky says that
16:50all language has to have recursive rules
16:53and he says I don't know who's right in
16:55this but certainly he raises an
16:56interesting possibility that the pahad
16:59the tribe he studies the Amazon basin
17:01they don't have these rules that have
17:02these mathematical properties that
17:04Chomsky described they can't make
17:06relative clauses they can't say I met
17:08the man who knew my mother they have to
17:10say I met the man the man knew my mother
17:12but they can't make a relative clause
17:14and that's just the fact about their
17:16language is that they don't have
17:17recursion I don't see why that's
17:19impossible though it was though it's a
17:21counterexample to chomsky's
17:24views I recall you mentioning once U
17:27something about uh the sort of dualism
17:30that that people tend to to lapse into
17:32when they're thinking you were
17:34describing um
17:36your uh theories about uh one
17:39philosopher I think it was um wienstein
17:41wienstein
17:43yeah um you you liked his early work um
17:47but you thought that it needed some some
17:50amending or those ideas were incomplete
17:53and someone another philosopher said
17:54well then you must like the second work
17:57and you said no I I I I just think the
17:59first work needs uh uh those ideas need
18:02some developing yeah and I it's just
18:04it's something that that I see all the
18:06time around me is it it seems like um
18:09this sort of a a binary dualism where
18:11it's like a an excuse not to think it's
18:14like if it's not communism it's
18:15capitalism or if it's not a it's B you
18:17know or if it's not zero it's one um do
18:20you have any thoughts on well I I I
18:22think in fact there are valuable parts
18:24of both early wienstein and later vien
18:27Stein my own approach to langu is really
18:30different from either of those but still
18:32vien Stein was one of the great
18:33philosophers of the 20th century made an
18:35enormous contradiction the point you're
18:38making now is that we do tend to think
18:40in binary categories good guys and bad
18:43guys uh the people were for and the
18:46people were against and of course real
18:48life is much too complicated to make
18:50those categories and I think part of
18:52what we try to teach people in education
18:55particularly in education and philosophy
18:57is to get a richer set of categories and
19:00one indeed one of the things that you
19:02get of an education which isn't really
19:05officially a very well marked but it
19:08certainly is the mark of an educated
19:10person and that is the ability to make
19:13subtle
19:14discriminations so it is just good and
19:16bad but there are all kinds of nice ways
19:20of describing what exactly is good about
19:22it and what is bad about it there's a
19:25kind of manism that pervades popular
19:27culture and we're all
19:29victims of it we think well the guys on
19:31our side those are the good guys and the
19:33guys on the other side those are really
19:35the bad guys yeah and this really comes
19:38out especially strong in elections The
19:41Secret of successful democracies is it
19:44really shouldn't make too much
19:46difference who gets elected I think life
19:49will I mean I happen to be for one
19:51candidate and not the other but I
19:52recognize that for the most part Life
19:54Will Go On even if the other guys uh get
19:58elected
19:59whereas the your real dichotomy people
20:02think no this would be the end of
20:04civilization as we know it if the bad
20:06guys get elected in the case of
20:07democracies that's not true successful
20:10democracies have to allow for genuine
20:13Alternatives coming to power and the the
20:16reason for that is that the outcome of
20:18the election doesn't actually settle the
20:21major questions who's going to live and
20:22who's going to die who's going to be
20:24rich and who's going to be poor you
20:26don't want those issues settled at
20:27elections do you think that um we'd be
20:30better served with the proportional
20:33representation and multiple parties and
20:35now we we're getting off the topic
20:37you're getting off the topic but but uh
20:39no I don't I think what you want is a
20:41kind of stability and in particular in
20:43America with this enormous complexity
20:46and pluralism and all these different
20:48factions and all these different
20:49traditions and cultures it's very
20:52important that you not just divide up
20:55the government of the country in a whole
20:56lot of quarreling factions and the fact
20:59that the executive has to be controlled
21:01by one party or another forces us to
21:03have a two-party system it forces all
21:06sorts of diverse groups to come together
21:08and I think that's part of the
21:09unconscious Genius of the American
21:11Constitution is it forces us uh to a
21:14kind of agreement that you wouldn't get
21:16in a in a a plural system in a well in a
21:21constitu in a a parliamentary type
21:25system you know to go back to pany ism
21:28for a minute you you mentioned that you
21:31could see where it's attractive to
21:32people yeah um I think of the many
21:35indigenous people that that felt like
21:37there was Spirit everywhere and that was
21:39was well let me tell you exactly what's
21:41wrong with it pans psychism is the view
21:43that everything is conscious
21:46Consciousness is everywhere I'm
21:48reviewing a book for the New York Review
21:50where the author says the universe is
21:53suffused with Consciousness now that is
21:56hot air and I can tell you why why
21:58people are tempted to it and why it's uh
22:02nonsense they're tempted to it because
22:04as I said earlier we don't know how the
22:06brain creates Consciousness and it's
22:08tempting to think well maybe it doesn't
22:10create Consciousness maybe Consciousness
22:12is there everywhere like gravity it just
22:14everywhere is uh pervaded with
22:16Consciousness and then we have little
22:18Islands or little pools of Consciousness
22:21in our heads but really Consciousness is
22:24everywhere now what's wrong without the
22:25proof of that isn't there a leap of
22:26logic on your part as well yeah well the
22:29the let me tell you what's incoherent
22:31about that view Consciousness comes in
22:35units my Consciousness is not the same
22:38as your Consciousness and they're not
22:40like adjoining puddles of mud that kind
22:42of leak into each other no there's a
22:44place where my Consciousness ends and
22:46yours begins and the pro all
22:49Consciousness comes in units now the
22:50problem with pan psychism is they can't
22:52say what the units are see I reviewed a
22:54guy who said well maybe thermostats are
22:56conscious why the thermostat why not
22:58each screw in the thermostat why not the
23:01building why not the whole heating
23:02system why not the whole city is that
23:04chers and if you say it was in fact yeah
23:07if but if you then say
23:09well um uh then all of these are
23:13conscious then what's the relationship
23:15between their Consciousness you see if
23:17you say my brain is clearly conscious
23:19but suppose you say but my so is my
23:20thumb and my fingernail and each
23:22molecule in my stomach what's the
23:23relation between those Consciousness and
23:26the consciousness of my brain so the Inc
23:28cerence of psychism can be stated in one
23:31sentence Consciousness comes in units
23:35and the panus cannot tell us what the
23:37units
23:39are you know on a spiritual level I
23:42remember reading a philosopher a couple
23:45different philosophers talking about the
23:47devel long development of sentience and
23:49and our language ability and and saying
23:52that that that this is when Nature
23:54became aware of itself because it now
23:57had created a creature that
24:00could understand the existence of Nature
24:02and talk about it and yeah and things
24:04like that and and my reaction to that
24:08was that it seemed uh uh some
24:11anthropomorphic yes it does you know I
24:13don't think that that's that nature
24:15became aware of itself when we became
24:17fully Cent most Consciousness in the
24:19universe is not self-aware most
24:21conscious in the universe is in animals
24:23or fish or birds that are not busy
24:27reflecting on thems elves their
24:29Consciousness functions biologically to
24:31assist in their survival but human
24:34consciousness which allows for the
24:36consciousness of Consciousness that is
24:38allows us to for for us to become
24:41conscious of our own conscious States
24:42and reflect on them and indeed to
24:44reflect on our reflecting on those
24:46conscious States as you and I are now
24:47doing I doubt very much that that goes
24:50very far down the philogenetic scale as
24:52it happens I'm a dog lover uh and I have
24:55a sequence of wonderful dogs the my
24:57favorite is the bernes mountain dog now
24:59these are intelligent dogs but I know
25:02they're not busy reflecting on this
25:05nature of their own introspective
25:07capacities they're mostly thinking about
25:09the cats they're going to chase and the
25:10bones that they're going to eat and they
25:12don't have the the time or the capacity
25:15to reflect on reflection they're not
25:17thinking about what a good bone it was
25:19yesterday well I maybe they're thinking
25:21about that I hope so but they do not
25:23have this remarkable capacity that human
25:25consciousness have and I think most of
25:27it we couldn't have without language
25:28to have these second and third and
25:30fourth level Consciousness where you
25:32have something that refers to referring
25:34and refers to referring to referring and
25:36that's extremely sophisticated it's not
25:38a feature of Consciousness in
25:40general well Professor surl we have a
25:42minute left um would you like to talk
25:45about what you're working on now your B
25:46yes I'm writing three books and the one
25:48I was working on today which I think is
25:50very exciting is
25:52perception I and if you know anything
25:54about the history of philosophy you know
25:56that the uh subject of perception is a
25:59horrendous mess mostly because a mistake
26:01made in the 17th century that says well
26:03you never really perceive the real world
26:06you only perceive your own experiences
26:09and then you have to ask how do you get
26:12from your experiences that you do
26:13perceive to the real world that you
26:15don't perceive is that decart or well
26:17that's decart and lock and then the
26:20question was rejected by Barkley and
26:22whom said well really the real world
26:23just is your experiences and that's
26:25another disaster so what we have to do I
26:28mean the perception is exciting because
26:30we want to be able to explain how our
26:32perceptual apparatus is conscious and
26:35consists of these conscious States but
26:37at the same time it gives us direct
26:39presentation of objects and states of
26:40Affairs in the world that's what I'm
26:42working on now two other books one on
26:44language and another one on philosophy
26:46in general I thought I'd write a general
26:48book about how to do philosophy good
26:51well Professor surl thank you so much
26:52for taking time out of your schedule to
26:54come talk to us well thank you very much
26:55for having me all right and thank you
26:58for watching good night
27:04[Music]
27:11[Music]

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