Searle: Philosophy of Language, lecture 1

John Searle
Philosophy of Language, lecture 1
UC-Berkeley Philosophy 133, Fall 2010
MP3s of the entire course:
skydrive.live.com/?id=6BB0887...
The current year's course can be found at: webcast.berkeley.edu/series.ht...

[@Lewiseaton666]

lecture 1 Philosophy of Language - Distinctions and Overview lecture 2 Use & Mention, J.L. Austin’s Speech Act Theory lecture 3 Speech Acts - Twelve Features, Five Classifications lecture 4 Classifications, cont., Grice’s Theory of Meaning lecture 5 Grice, cont., Some Counterexamples, Intentionality lecture 6 Expressibility, Rules, Representation, Intentional Acts lecture 7 Theory of Human Action, Freedom of Will lecture 8 Performatives, Assertives, Directives, Commisives lecture 9 Review of Speech Act Taxonomy, Frege lecture 10 Russell’s Paradox, Frege’s ‘Sense and Reference’ lecture 11 Frege, cont., Extensionality vs Intensionality, Russell lecture 12 Russell’s ‘On Denoting’, Strawson’s ‘On Referring’ lecture 13 Review of Frege, Russell & Strawson, Twin-Earth lecture 14 Russell vs Strawson, Indirect Speech Acts, Indexicals lecture 15 Cluster theory & Kripke, Externalism vs Internalism lecture 16 Externalism vs Internalism, cont., Indexicality, Truth lecture 17 Theories of Truth, Objections to Correspondence lecture 18 Answers to Objections to Correspondence Theory lecture 19 Relativism, Solipsism, Background Capacities & Rules lecture 20 Anthropology, Fiction, Non-explicitness, Commitments lecture 21 Fiction cont., Grice’s Maxims, Indirect Speech Acts lecture 22 Indirect Speech Acts, cont., Metaphor lecture 23 Radical Contextualism, Metaphor, Quine’s Two Dogmas lecture 24 Naturalism, Quine on Indeterminacy, Chomsky lecture 25 Chomsky cont., Pictorial Representation lecture 26 Picturing, cont., Performatives, Human Institutions lecture 27 Social Construction, Externalism, Proper Names lecture 28 Philosophy of Language in Wider Context, Metaphor

[@PCH12r]

I have completely translated into my native language his lecture's transcripts on mind phil. now starting this course.

[@PrimitiveBaroque]

Love John Searle. Ever since I read his book "Speech Acts" I've been hooked on his clarity.

[@paxdriver]

It was an audio lecture series for me. I came across him on mp3 in the Napster years lol

[@Spideysenses67]

I know right! John Searle is the king of clarity and as a result he's made the entire subject of Philosophy more accessible to me.

[@NousProductions]

Thanks for posting this great course. John Searle is the man.

[@Daft_Sage]

The first 10 minutes could be summed up as models vs truth (analytics cs synthetics). Language and mathematics are models, while empirical data are truths. Then he moves on to fact vs opinion. Then implicit meaning vs literal or precise meaning. Recursion, any Noun + verb phrase can be applied to any other sentence, which could itself be a noun + verb phrase applied to any other sentence with the help of a relative clause; who, whom, whose, that, which (e.x. (Jamie thinks that (Dorothy wants to live in a house (which is by the beach))). Compositionality just seems like syntax+semantics (2+2=4). Performative utterance, command/perform [felicitous vs infelicitous] vs constative utterance, description [true or false]. Performing the statement vs the statement is a performance (constative vs performative). Speaker meaning vs sentence meaning.

[@navis5284]

Excellent resource here on KZbin! Thanks to whoever made this possible.

[@stephenchavura8456]

Looking forward to working through these lectures over the coming months

[@WisdomisPower-10inminute-dn5no]

The way you approach these subjects is intriguing and resonates with the themes I explore in my videos.

[@leonardstilwell1894]

This dude is great ... love Searle. So clear; so concise. Does what a good philosopher raised in the analytic tradition should do. I was particularly intrigued by his quick allusions to Chomsky's defense for universal grammar and its centrality to our humanity. How is it children so early, quickly and universally acquire, in particular, the complex formal structure of their native language, but are unable to acquire any other (e.g., axiomatic set theory)? I had never thought of it in that way ... mind BLOWN!

[@gvardon]

As Professor Searle illustrates philosophy develops cultural sophistication. To state this differently one becomes more cultured by studying philosophy.

[@Daft_Sage]

+Gary Vardon That statement means nothing.

[@OntologicalCatastrophe]

@@Daft_Sage It is not possible for something to mean nothing

[@Liliquan]

Gary Vardon Whose culture?

[@johnantony797]

Just wonderful!

[@k16057]

Yes. Have a marvellous day.

[@baeksoltang]

It's the first time I get to listen to his lectures, not via text. I am not blaming one for this, but it's kinda funny to hear him calling out a student not to flap the laptop.

[@rekhatripathi5726]

Completed his "Mind" , it's great .

[@die_schlechtere_Milch]

does anybody know the syllabus of this lecture?

[@sergiogarrido5111]

Does anyone have the assigned readings for the whole course? Thanks in advance!

[@justbede]

@cocotiger..with 500 possible characters one has to go step by step. We can talk about what you liked about it.

[@kazikamruzzaman8033]

Philosophy is the real Knowledge about Language!

[@manavkhatarkar9983]

He is so articulate and comprehensible as opposed to other lecturers. 22:35 😂

[@woodleman]

The link to the mp3s isn't working for me, have they been removed?

[@FeaturingtheSun]

Did it ever cross your mind that the person posting wrote like that on purpose on a video concerning language in which Searle made a joke about a guy who couldn't form grammatically correct sentences?

[@Glashome]

Amn't is still used in a few places. Scotland for one

[@longgone23]

i'm trying to figure out how his views differ from lakoff's. anyone has a clue?

[@die_schlechtere_Milch]

Does Lakoff distinguish between syntax and Lexis, how it is done in generative grammar and also by Searle? I never read Lakoff, but I saw his recommendation on the back of a book that is against the generative framework and against the distinction between lexis and syntax. (constructions at work)

[@melodyjang2876]

I would like to understand the last humor but it didn’t come clear to me even if I had listened to it a few times. Can someone kindly make it clear to me? It goes “ I never trust dog owners....

[@serendiptychild]

Which region of the US is his accent from? I dont think I'v heard someone with quite that pattern

[@die_schlechtere_Milch]

I'm no native speaker, so I am also interested in that. To me Chomsky sounds quite similar, so I guess they speak the same variety.

[@peterdobey4062]

Denver but it’s got much East coast flair to it

[@rolandausgsburger4616]

To say: „Can you pass the salt?“ conventionally counts as an attempt to get the listener to pass the salt. The term „speaker’s meaning“ is misleading because it is a highly conventional way to ask someone to pass the salt. It may not be the „literal meaning“ but it is not just the speaker's meaning that has to be decoded by a number of inferences as Searle suggests elsewhere.

[@noamtrotsky9601]

2:36

[@alute5532]

Indirect speech act (request ) Beyond semantic meaning Speaker meaning exceeds semantic meaning(of syntactical form) Example 1 request Can you pass me the Salt Do you know where metaphor Sentence meaning & speaker meaning can come apart Pay attention to intonation It's traditional rhetorical devices Understatement & hyperbole Metaphor metanymy, Annika 8;46 Everything dualism in mind Functionalism behaviorlism Ferge 2nd best German after Kant Logic & philosopher of language 9:00 simple argument 9:10 done in philosophical literature Placing issues in some historical context Kant distinction 1. Synthetic statement T f in virtue to facts world 2. Analytic statement T f in virtue to meanings of words themselves Analytic stmts All bA are unmarried 2+2=4 Synthetic stmt of sth beyond meaning facts in world This's related to propositions Known after investigation using experiences Apriori known beforehand Bachelors are unmarried 2+2=4 Prior to experience A Posteriori Bachelor's wear blue jeans Alcoholincidents in Berkeley has increased students increased Needs experiment to experience That's an epistemic distinction (on the how the way things are made) How propositions are known Analytic (simple) propositions known a priori but synthetic known posteriori Kant deal finding propositions that are synthetic & known apriori Necessary & contingent propositions Heyday Analytic phiilosophy these were 3 different ways marking same distinction As far as necessary because their necessity derives from the meanings Meaning is truth 16:36 Beethoven is better than average musician

[@Dtchmastrkilla7]

2:36 to skip the BS

[@ykrgfk]

I wish this could be pinned to the top!

[@die_schlechtere_Milch]

Generative grammar is wrong. You cannot divide a language into syntax and lexis. From a valency standpoint (dictionary-amd-grammar modell) you cannot say so. E.g. 'He resembles his sister.' -> '*her sister is resembled by him.'??? from a constructivist standpoint you have to say that even highly abstract 'syntactic' patterns carry meaning, like the DITRANSITIVE or the SAI CxN.

[@tsunningwah3471]

zhian!

[@Tucknrollgrampa]

........

[@tsunningwah3471]

zhina!

[@k16057]

I find it hilarious that the guy below watched a philosophy of language lecture, but doesn't speak proper English (in which the lecture is). xD

[@michaelsowerby8198]

Chomsky was incorrect when he postulated that the ability to learn language was a genetic phenomenon. The ability to learn language is a metaphysical phenomena, which is entirely based in what is true, as opposed to what is not true.

[@tsunningwah3471]

zhinq!

[@justbede]

You don't know the meaning of those words? How sad. Is it a little hard for you to understand a statement like "philosophy never changed the state of affairs in the world like science does? Sorry about that.

[@ShogunJimi]

sorry, this lecture held promise, yet the delivery failed completely. human beings have been talking and using language for thousands of year, and he credits an obscure modern philosopher as the inventor of this science. How many inaccuracies are professors allowed to speak before they loose credibility?

[@pedroph123]

Shogun-Jimi My God. We've been digesting food for more than thousand years before physiology. Does that make a lecture on the digestive system something invalid?

[@christopherhamilton3621]

‘… lose…’