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Columbia Themes in Philosophy
Freedom and Neurobiology: Reflections on Free Will, Language, and Political Power
Our self-conception derives mostly from our own experience. We believe ourselves to be conscious, rational, social, ethical, language-using, political agents who possess free will. Yet we know we exist in a universe that consists of mindless, meaningless, unfree, nonrational, brute physical particles. How can we resolve the conflict between these two visions?
In Freedom and Neurobiology, the philosopher John Searle discusses the possibility of free will within the context of contemporary neurobiology. He begins by explaining the relationship between human reality and the more fundamental reality as described by physics and chemistry. Then he proposes a neurobiological resolution to the problem by demonstrating how various conceptions of free will have different consequences for the neurobiology of consciousness.
In the second half of the book, Searle applies his theory of social reality to the problem of political power, explaining the role of language in the formation of our political reality. The institutional structures that organize, empower, and regulate our lives-money, property, marriage, government-consist in the assignment and collective acceptance of certain statuses to objects and people. Whether it is the president of the United States, a twenty-dollar bill, or private property, these entities perform functions as determined by their status in our institutional reality. Searle focuses on the political powers that exist within these systems of status functions and the way in which language constitutes them.
Searle argues that consciousness and rationality are crucial to our existence and that they are the result of the biological evolution of our species. He addresses the problem of free will within the context of a neurobiological conception of consciousness and rationality, and he addresses the problem of political power within the context of this analysis.
A clear and concise contribution to the free-will debate and the study of cognition, Freedom and Neurobiology is essential reading for students and scholars of the philosophy of mind.
In Freedom and Neurobiology, the philosopher John Searle discusses the possibility of free will within the context of contemporary neurobiology. He begins by explaining the relationship between human reality and the more fundamental reality as described by physics and chemistry. Then he proposes a neurobiological resolution to the problem by demonstrating how various conceptions of free will have different consequences for the neurobiology of consciousness.
In the second half of the book, Searle applies his theory of social reality to the problem of political power, explaining the role of language in the formation of our political reality. The institutional structures that organize, empower, and regulate our lives-money, property, marriage, government-consist in the assignment and collective acceptance of certain statuses to objects and people. Whether it is the president of the United States, a twenty-dollar bill, or private property, these entities perform functions as determined by their status in our institutional reality. Searle focuses on the political powers that exist within these systems of status functions and the way in which language constitutes them.
Searle argues that consciousness and rationality are crucial to our existence and that they are the result of the biological evolution of our species. He addresses the problem of free will within the context of a neurobiological conception of consciousness and rationality, and he addresses the problem of political power within the context of this analysis.
A clear and concise contribution to the free-will debate and the study of cognition, Freedom and Neurobiology is essential reading for students and scholars of the philosophy of mind.
130 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2005
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About the author
John Rogers Searle
97 books376 followersJohn Rogers Searle (born July 31, 1932 in Denver, Colorado) is an American philosopher and was the Slusser Professor of Philosophy and Mills Professor of Philosophy of Mind and Language at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley). Widely noted for his contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and social philosophy, he was the first tenured professor to join the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley. He received the Jean Nicod Prize in 2000, and the National Humanities Medal in 2004.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
October 24, 2021
مجدداً به خاطر نداشتن دانشِ زمینهای فلسفی اذیت شدم و لغات زیادی بود که دقیق متوجه منظورش نمیشدم و خیلی هم ارجاع به کتابهای قبلیش داشت.
شاید اگه نسخهی انگلیسیش رو بخونم، بهتر بفهمم.
و بیشتر برام سؤال ایجاد شد دربارهی اختیار و ارادهی آزاد. :))
برای آدمی که فقط از بیولوژی مغز میدونه، فهمیدن این کتاب راحت نیست. :))
یکشنبه، ۲ آبان ۱۴۰۰.
شاید اگه نسخهی انگلیسیش رو بخونم، بهتر بفهمم.
و بیشتر برام سؤال ایجاد شد دربارهی اختیار و ارادهی آزاد. :))
برای آدمی که فقط از بیولوژی مغز میدونه، فهمیدن این کتاب راحت نیست. :))
یکشنبه، ۲ آبان ۱۴۰۰.
June 12, 2011
I read another book by John Searle in which he was mainly trying to prove that both dualism and materialism are wrong when it comes to explaining consciousness. He repeats the same line here a few times. Now I can’t remember at all how he tried to prove that point in his earlier book. So much for all these books that I read. How can both dualism and materialism be wrong? But anyway... this is a nice little book on the age-old question of freedom of will. Searle doesn’t attempt to solve the problem - doesn’t even claim that he can solve it - but tries to formulate the problem in a better way, to point to where exactly the gap is, for anyone who might want to have a stab at it. The book needs some focused attention, but it’s not difficult, and I really liked his formulation of the problem of freedom of will. With all the long and tedious books out there that claim to explain consciousness and freedom of will, it’s nice to get a good understanding of what the problem really is.
June 16, 2014
بدرد فلسفه پرستایی میخوره که میخوان حالا با نوروساینسم دو جمله شوآف کنن
November 27, 2022
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No new insight that anyone who has thought about this problem did not think about. A short book that is much too long.
No new insight that anyone who has thought about this problem did not think about. A short book that is much too long.
August 8, 2025
while of course I can't say I agree with every aspect of his breakdown of concepts like free will and political power, he does do a great job in a short space of creating something understandable. he creates a lexicon of ideas and terminology that allows him to describe these complex and seemingly vague ideas in a way that makes them less vague. his descriptions of reality are plausible. thats an impressive thing to do. this is one I could revisit every couple of years just to reorganize my brain and reasoning skills. similar to Kant, Searle has the ability to melt your brain a bit by melting reality into a delicious soup in which you can taste each ingredient. I was lucky enough to take a few of his classes while at Berkeley so of all contemporary philosophers, he's certainly the one I've given the most effort in contemplating and appreciating.
June 5, 2023
A very likable style or writing philosophy. The book starts on the problem on free will and somehow ends reflecting on power, the marvel is that the reader doesn't feel any abrupt changes. It all develops as a gradient.
December 14, 2018
This is a curious little book comprised of two separate and mostly unrelated parts: one about the problem of free will and neurobiology, the other about the relation between language and political reality. In many ways, this is Searle going one step further with two of his pet topics, namely a) consciousness and b) the creation of social reality.
Generally, I tend to be rather sympathetic toward Searle's views on consciousness. In short, he famously espouses a view he calls biological naturalism, which holds that consciousness is a natural phenomenon that is a feature of certain brain states, but that it involves a 'first-person ontology' – that subjective, inner feeling of how, say, wine tastes – which cannot be reduced into the normal third-person explanations that we use to describe the rest of nature.
However, I found Searle's attempt to develop this line of thought into a view on free will to be less appealing and slightly more confused. Searle starts off by observing that, like with most philosophical problems, the problem of free will arises because we hold two conflicting convictions simultaneously and it is hard to see how view can get rid of either of them. On the one hand, in the age of science we are quite committed to the view that all events have antecedently sufficient causes. (Searle is not interested in compatibilist definitions of free will here.) On the other hand, our lived experience suggests to us that we are making free choices in a manner that doesn't seem to be causally sufficiently determined, and we can imagine having acted otherwise in the same situation. Indeed, it is hard to see how we can act at all without presupposing our own freedom. So far, so good.
If we're going to find any free will, Searle seems quite convinced that this would be in what he dubs 'the gap' – that gap we apparently experience "between the reasons for the decision and the making of the decision. There is a gap between the decision and the onset of the action." This, however, seems to be a bit of a simplistic view of how decision-making is carried out in light of contemporary neuroscience. In reality, decision-making seems to be a rather chaotic process with many parallell processes, many of which appear to be unconscious, and not some linear process of causes that lead up to a gap where some inner helmsman makes a non-determined choice – causa sui – that then leads to some action. Whereas Searle seems convinced that any freedom would have to be found in the moment right before an action/decision, I think the work of someone like Peter Tse shows how the freedom / indeterminism might instead come into play at another stage of the decision-making process, namely in the re-weighting the criteria that our brain will use to make future decisions. Tersely put, the basic idea here is that neurons in the present alter the physical realization of future mental events in a way that therefore escapes the self-causation that seems to me to be implied by Searle's proposal.
In the second part of the book, Searle tries to explain the ontology of political reality – that is to say, how we humans are able to create institutional and political facts, something that other social animals seemingly do not. This is mostly a pretty straight-forward elongation of the concepts that he has introduced in his earlier treatments of social reality. Good ol' terms like 'collective intentionality' and 'status functions' feature heavily here.
Generally, I tend to be rather sympathetic toward Searle's views on consciousness. In short, he famously espouses a view he calls biological naturalism, which holds that consciousness is a natural phenomenon that is a feature of certain brain states, but that it involves a 'first-person ontology' – that subjective, inner feeling of how, say, wine tastes – which cannot be reduced into the normal third-person explanations that we use to describe the rest of nature.
However, I found Searle's attempt to develop this line of thought into a view on free will to be less appealing and slightly more confused. Searle starts off by observing that, like with most philosophical problems, the problem of free will arises because we hold two conflicting convictions simultaneously and it is hard to see how view can get rid of either of them. On the one hand, in the age of science we are quite committed to the view that all events have antecedently sufficient causes. (Searle is not interested in compatibilist definitions of free will here.) On the other hand, our lived experience suggests to us that we are making free choices in a manner that doesn't seem to be causally sufficiently determined, and we can imagine having acted otherwise in the same situation. Indeed, it is hard to see how we can act at all without presupposing our own freedom. So far, so good.
If we're going to find any free will, Searle seems quite convinced that this would be in what he dubs 'the gap' – that gap we apparently experience "between the reasons for the decision and the making of the decision. There is a gap between the decision and the onset of the action." This, however, seems to be a bit of a simplistic view of how decision-making is carried out in light of contemporary neuroscience. In reality, decision-making seems to be a rather chaotic process with many parallell processes, many of which appear to be unconscious, and not some linear process of causes that lead up to a gap where some inner helmsman makes a non-determined choice – causa sui – that then leads to some action. Whereas Searle seems convinced that any freedom would have to be found in the moment right before an action/decision, I think the work of someone like Peter Tse shows how the freedom / indeterminism might instead come into play at another stage of the decision-making process, namely in the re-weighting the criteria that our brain will use to make future decisions. Tersely put, the basic idea here is that neurons in the present alter the physical realization of future mental events in a way that therefore escapes the self-causation that seems to me to be implied by Searle's proposal.
In the second part of the book, Searle tries to explain the ontology of political reality – that is to say, how we humans are able to create institutional and political facts, something that other social animals seemingly do not. This is mostly a pretty straight-forward elongation of the concepts that he has introduced in his earlier treatments of social reality. Good ol' terms like 'collective intentionality' and 'status functions' feature heavily here.
Currently reading
March 27, 2008The last century has seen a radical shift in philosophy, basically stemming from the realization that philosophy has been radically outpaced by science and everything else. So a century of work has gone into trying to correct the unchecked assumptions that have been growing since Plato. This is the most insecure century of thought. Don't bother with it, just jump ahead to Searle, Neurobiology and Linguistics.
January 15, 2023
หนังสือจากคำบรรยาย 2 เรื่องเมื่อปี 2001 ของ John Searle ที่ฝรั่งเศส เรื่องแรก Free Will as a Problem in Neurobiology บทนี้ Searle พยายามที่ตอบคำถามว่า เราจะอธิบายความคิดเกี่ยวกับตัวเราเอง เช่น การเป็นหน่วยที่มีจิตใจ มีเสรี มีความจงใจ มีเหตุผล เข้ากับเอกภพที่ไม่มีจิตใจ ไม่มีความหมาย ฯลฯ ได้อย่างไร ประเด็นจึงอยู่ที่ความพยายามอธิบาย free will เข้ากับ basic facts (ข้อเท็จจริงทางกายภาพเกี่ยวกับเอกภพ) Searle วิเคราะห์ทั้งเชิงตรรกะและเชิงกระบวนการได้สุดยอดมาก ๆ ครับ ปฏิเสธทั้ง materialism กับ dualism (ทุกชนิด) โดยเฉพาะช่วงวิเคราะห์ตัวอย่างการตัดสินใจของเจ้าชายปารีสว่าจะมอบแอปเปิลทองคำให้ใครดี ระหว่าง ฮีร่าผู้เสนอว่าให้ครองยุโรปกับเอเชีย หรือ อธีน่า ผู้จะทำให้เขานำศึกโทรจันชนะพวกกรีก หรือ แอฟรอไดที ผู้สัญญาว่าจะให้สาวงามที่สุดในโลก Searle สมมติว่าข้อมูลข้อเสนอทั้งหมดของเทพีทั้งสามองค์ครบถ้วนที่สมองของปารีส ณ เวลา t1 และที่เวลา t2 เจ้าชายยื่นผลแอปเปิล (ให้แอฟรอไดที) ช่วง "the gap" ดังกล่าวเป็นช่วงเวลาที่ปารีสอาจจะเผชิญหน้ากับสิ่งที่เรียกว่า "free will" การวิเคราะห์อย่างน่าทึ่ง (คุณต้องอ่านเอง) ตรงนี้นำไปสู่การทำให้ Searle ตั้งสมมติฐาน 2 ข้อเกี่ยวกับสถานะของสมอง (state of the brain) คือ 1. "causally sufficient" (ลำพังสถานะของสมองกับข้อมูลก็เพียงพอที่จะเป็นเหตุไปสู่การกระทำ) อันจะนำไปสู่มายาภาพของ free will และกลุ่มแนวคิด epiphenomenalism กับ 2. "absence of causally conditions" (=นิเสธของ 1.) มี free will อยู่จริงในฐานะที่เป็น cause ของการกระทำตามโครงสร้างตรรกะอีกแบบ (ไม่ใช่ "A caused B" แต่เป็น "a rational self S performed act A, and in performing A, S acted on reason R") แต่ไม่ได้มีอยู่จริงในฐานะเป็นความจริงที่มีตัวตนแยกต่างหากหรือเป็นอีกตัวตนหนึ่งซึ่งไม่ใช่สิ่งที่มีทาง neurobiology คำอธิบายที่น่าสนใจของ Searle ในสมมติฐานข้อนี้คือ "the gap" จะเป็นความจริงทาง neurobiology ได้อย่างไร เพื่ออธิบายคำตอบต่อคำถามนี้ Searle ต้องอ้างไปถึงพฤติกรรมระดับควอนตัม อันที่จริงสิ่งที่แกต้องการจากควอนตัมสำหรับเป็น premise ให้ข้อโต้แย้งคือ "quantum indeterminism"
เรื่องที่สอง Social Ontology and Political Power บทนี้สั้นมากและเนื้อหาแน่นมาก ศัพท์แสงและนิยามเยอะมาก ประเด็นหลักคือสำรวจความสัมพันธ์ระหว่างภววิทยา (ontology) ของความเป็นจริงทางสังคม (social reality) กับอำนาจทางการเมือง (political power) ซึ่งเป็นรูปแบบจำเพาะรูปแบบหนึ่งของความเป็นจริงทางสังคม อันที่จริงมันก็คล้ายเป��นภาคขยายของคำถามในเรื่องแรก นั่นคือ Searle พยายามตอบคำถามว่าความเป็นจริงทางการเมือง (political reality) สามารถมีขึ้นเกิดขึ้นมาในโลกที่ประกอบด้วยอนุภาคทางกายภาพได้อย่างไร อะไรคือสิ่งที่เพิ่มขึ้นมาจาก collective intentionality (ซึ่งเป็นรากฐานที่ใช้สร้าง social reality หรือ society) เพื่อก่อร่างสร้างตัวเป็น institutional reality โดย Searle เสนอคำตอบไว้ 2 องค์ประกอบคือ 1. การที่คนมีความสามารถสร้าง status function (หรือ "imposition of function" มนุษย์สามารถ impose ฟังก์ชั่นให้กับวัตถุเพื่อให้มีสถานะใหม่ ตัวอย่างเช่น ธนบัตรในกระเป๋าสตางค์ของคุณ) กับ 2. "constitutive rules" (อยู่ในโครงสร้างตรรกะ "X counts as Y" หรือ "X counts as Y in context C") อันเป็นเครื่องมือที่ทำให้เราสามารถกำหนด status function ได้ ตรงนี้ Searle เขียนว่า "The key element in the move from the brute to the institutional, and correspondingly the move from assigned physical functions to status functions, is the move expressed in the constitutive rule." ทำให้ภาษาเข้ามามีส่วนสำคัญใน institutional reality (ทำไม? ต้องอ่านเอง) และในส่วนที่สองของบท Searle สรุปประเด็นสำคัญเกี่ยวกับ political power ใน propositions 8 ข้อ
หนังสือเล่มนี้อ่านสนุกและมึน
เรื่องที่สอง Social Ontology and Political Power บทนี้สั้นมากและเนื้อหาแน่นมาก ศัพท์แสงและนิยามเยอะมาก ประเด็นหลักคือสำรวจความสัมพันธ์ระหว่างภววิทยา (ontology) ของความเป็นจริงทางสังคม (social reality) กับอำนาจทางการเมือง (political power) ซึ่งเป็นรูปแบบจำเพาะรูปแบบหนึ่งของความเป็นจริงทางสังคม อันที่จริงมันก็คล้ายเป��นภาคขยายของคำถามในเรื่องแรก นั่นคือ Searle พยายามตอบคำถามว่าความเป็นจริงทางการเมือง (political reality) สามารถมีขึ้นเกิดขึ้นมาในโลกที่ประกอบด้วยอนุภาคทางกายภาพได้อย่างไร อะไรคือสิ่งที่เพิ่มขึ้นมาจาก collective intentionality (ซึ่งเป็นรากฐานที่ใช้สร้าง social reality หรือ society) เพื่อก่อร่างสร้างตัวเป็น institutional reality โดย Searle เสนอคำตอบไว้ 2 องค์ประกอบคือ 1. การที่คนมีความสามารถสร้าง status function (หรือ "imposition of function" มนุษย์สามารถ impose ฟังก์ชั่นให้กับวัตถุเพื่อให้มีสถานะใหม่ ตัวอย่างเช่น ธนบัตรในกระเป๋าสตางค์ของคุณ) กับ 2. "constitutive rules" (อยู่ในโครงสร้างตรรกะ "X counts as Y" หรือ "X counts as Y in context C") อันเป็นเครื่องมือที่ทำให้เราสามารถกำหนด status function ได้ ตรงนี้ Searle เขียนว่า "The key element in the move from the brute to the institutional, and correspondingly the move from assigned physical functions to status functions, is the move expressed in the constitutive rule." ทำให้ภาษาเข้ามามีส่วนสำคัญใน institutional reality (ทำไม? ต้องอ่านเอง) และในส่วนที่สองของบท Searle สรุปประเด็นสำคัญเกี่ยวกับ political power ใน propositions 8 ข้อ
หนังสือเล่มนี้อ่านสนุกและมึน
September 30, 2023
This book are two lectures given by Searle originally in French at the Sorbonne, Freedom and Neurobiology; and Social Ontology and Political Power. They were really on unrelated subjects.
In Freedom and Neurobiology, Searle explains how freedom of the will can be described by neurobiology. It is part of his project of how to bridge intentional objects, objects with about ness and meaning such as consciousness, intentionally, language, rationality with a world that is made of meaningless elementary particles studied in the sciences. The first interesting observation is about the difference between freedom or volitional state and perceptual states. Perceptual states are passive. You have no choice what to perceive. Volitional state such as your decision to cross the street is active. You decide to cross. The second observation is there is an experiential gap between the antecedent decision to perform an action and the actual performance of the action. Perceptual states don't have such a gap. A third observation is explanation reason to decide in volitional states to perform an action is not a causally sufficient condition to bring about the action such as gravity bringing objects to fall to the ground.
Searle draws an analogy of how to view the solidity of physical objects based on molecular behaviour with how conscious states consist in the states of the neurons in the brain. Solidity is just the molecular states while consciousness is just neuronal states, not over and above them. Searle suggests that in volitional states to act, the neuronal states of consciousness from one state to the next neuronal states are not causally sufficient to move from one to the next. The thought process of reasoning in the neurons does not causally bring one to the other in the volitional process. The consciousness of one state to the other is independent. He sketched out this picture for neurobiology to fill in the details.
In Social Ontology and Poltical Power, he further develops the ideas in his book The Construction of Social Reality to provide an ontology of political power. Searle suggests that humans are different from other social animals capable of living in variousc social modes by creating a political reality using a system of deontic powers, powers from rights, duties, obligations, permissions, authorities, agreed upon by human community that is an institutional reality different from other social reality. This political reality creates a capacity to make humans to perform desire-independent actions, such as you accept to act in certain lawful manner whether you like all the laws or not. Further such political reality or power is often held in place by the political power to use coercive military or police power for compliance. Humans propensity to live in such abstract institutional reality in their own agreement makes them unique
These lectures offers usual Searlian clarity and lucid writing style that make them a pleasure to read and follow. Insights are penetrating as usual.
In Freedom and Neurobiology, Searle explains how freedom of the will can be described by neurobiology. It is part of his project of how to bridge intentional objects, objects with about ness and meaning such as consciousness, intentionally, language, rationality with a world that is made of meaningless elementary particles studied in the sciences. The first interesting observation is about the difference between freedom or volitional state and perceptual states. Perceptual states are passive. You have no choice what to perceive. Volitional state such as your decision to cross the street is active. You decide to cross. The second observation is there is an experiential gap between the antecedent decision to perform an action and the actual performance of the action. Perceptual states don't have such a gap. A third observation is explanation reason to decide in volitional states to perform an action is not a causally sufficient condition to bring about the action such as gravity bringing objects to fall to the ground.
Searle draws an analogy of how to view the solidity of physical objects based on molecular behaviour with how conscious states consist in the states of the neurons in the brain. Solidity is just the molecular states while consciousness is just neuronal states, not over and above them. Searle suggests that in volitional states to act, the neuronal states of consciousness from one state to the next neuronal states are not causally sufficient to move from one to the next. The thought process of reasoning in the neurons does not causally bring one to the other in the volitional process. The consciousness of one state to the other is independent. He sketched out this picture for neurobiology to fill in the details.
In Social Ontology and Poltical Power, he further develops the ideas in his book The Construction of Social Reality to provide an ontology of political power. Searle suggests that humans are different from other social animals capable of living in variousc social modes by creating a political reality using a system of deontic powers, powers from rights, duties, obligations, permissions, authorities, agreed upon by human community that is an institutional reality different from other social reality. This political reality creates a capacity to make humans to perform desire-independent actions, such as you accept to act in certain lawful manner whether you like all the laws or not. Further such political reality or power is often held in place by the political power to use coercive military or police power for compliance. Humans propensity to live in such abstract institutional reality in their own agreement makes them unique
These lectures offers usual Searlian clarity and lucid writing style that make them a pleasure to read and follow. Insights are penetrating as usual.
April 20, 2020
Neste breve compilado de duas palestras, Searle aborda a temática da liberdade (livre-arbítrio) trazendo informações sobre como ainda existem diversas dúvidas quanto a localização do que seria a mente consciente, além de tentar solucionar o antigo problema da livre escolha através de sistemas neurobiológicos (neuoronais, como usado na tradução que li). Faz sentido considerar isso? Uma boa pergunta. Quanto mais leio sobre livre-arbítrio, mais me aproximo de duas conclusões: o que temos não é uma mente responsável por tudo, mas sim uma série de mecanismos neurobiológicos responsáveis por diversas funções perceptivas que se articulam entre si, dando a nós a ilusão de uma consciência una e responsável por nossas escolhas. Pelo menos penso que, se isso existe de mim, a liberdade de escolha é algo meu. Para os leitores ávidos, vejam também O LIVRE-ARBÍTRIO, O andar do bêbado e The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself.
December 10, 2018
Promising but falls a little short. The second part is just literally a little short - it doesn't go into much depth about anything, though what it does say about the nature of politics is quite good. The first part, I just can't agree with so much. Searle thinks free will and determinism are impossible to fit together, and won't even consider it, whereas consciousness and matter can be fit together with just a change of perspective. I think that's the wrong way around. With free will and determinism, all it takes is looking beyond initial intuitions, but with consciousness and matter, well, I want to be able to make such a perspective flip, but it would be the biggest magic trick in philosophy, and no-one's ever managed it yet that I can see.
There's also not much about contemporary neurobiology.
There's also not much about contemporary neurobiology.
November 30, 2022
A short book that tell us very little in a very complex way - on topics that maybe have to be this complex, especially written from the viewpoint of philosophy. I wanted to read this because of the title that alludes to the first essay in the book - about free will, but for me the second essay was much better - the one about political power. I know little about John R. Searle, but his writings seems interesting - although after reading this they may be too complex for me as a layman. Maybe I will read another by him that is not two essays but more of a full book - I'm open to that.
December 24, 2021
A book consisting of two thorough lectures by the author, American philosopher John Searle. Free will is fascinating, and neurology is amazing - especially considering the progress made in the field over the last decades. But I'm not sure that the book is easy enough to read to be able to reach a larger audience than just, if you excuse my language, philosophy nerds. Despite it being pretty compact, it barely managed to keep me interested throughout.
December 8, 2023
John Searle is a legend. I'm not sure I believe in free will and I certainly do not believe in the government (as it is, as an efficient system). This book (and my criminology class) makes me think that the government is the primary reason for violence in modern society. Anyhow, the concepts and theories discussed in this book are fairly easy to grasp. I LOVE the way it is written though. There is something about a well-structured argument with just the right amount of field-specific diction that makes my heart leap over the moon.
May 8, 2018
Searle’s analysis of political power is interesting and fairly convincing if expressed in overly technical language.
However his analysis of free will overcomplicates the issue without providing illumination and it is clear that he himself is suffering from sever confusion regarding emergent phenomena and quantum mechanics.
However his analysis of free will overcomplicates the issue without providing illumination and it is clear that he himself is suffering from sever confusion regarding emergent phenomena and quantum mechanics.
Read
August 29, 2019searle...searle. SEARLE.
March 13, 2024
One of the most important bioks about Free will
August 31, 2011
Classic Searle, reasoning through nothing but plain common sense, and dismissing fruitful (and possibly accurate) ideas/theories on the basis that they are "intellectually very unsatisfying" (p. 62), or "literally incredible" (p. 77).
The most obvious and even fun case is on pages 45–46 where he literally uses his nemesis Dennett's heterophenomenology approach ("Granted that we have the experience of freedom, is that experience valid or is it illusory?"), only to discard the illusion answer as it is "absolutely astounding". One wonders how many more counter-intuitive facts we have to discover in order for him to abandon his intuitions; apparently the Copernican, Darwinian and Einsteinian revolutions weren't enough.
I was also disappointed when I found out that the two chapters "Free Will as a Problem in Neurobiology" and "Social Ontology and Political Power" were written separately and only relate to each other as parts of a "much larger philosophical enterprise".
3/5 because it's an easy read, has a few interesting ideas and a marvelous cover. Yes, I am easily deceived by appearences.
The most obvious and even fun case is on pages 45–46 where he literally uses his nemesis Dennett's heterophenomenology approach ("Granted that we have the experience of freedom, is that experience valid or is it illusory?"), only to discard the illusion answer as it is "absolutely astounding". One wonders how many more counter-intuitive facts we have to discover in order for him to abandon his intuitions; apparently the Copernican, Darwinian and Einsteinian revolutions weren't enough.
I was also disappointed when I found out that the two chapters "Free Will as a Problem in Neurobiology" and "Social Ontology and Political Power" were written separately and only relate to each other as parts of a "much larger philosophical enterprise".
3/5 because it's an easy read, has a few interesting ideas and a marvelous cover. Yes, I am easily deceived by appearences.
December 12, 2012
Let's differentiate animal and human will, for a moment. Human beings aren't simply social animals - we can no longer say we're the only ones - we are political animals. Searle, in a sometimes frustratingly repetitive way (many would say I explain things the same way), argues that without the fundamental promises we accept from our government(s), the many-featured promise that undergirds the institutions of, for instance, law, money, and marriage, we simply agree to be willing subjects of state-owned violent force. Therefore, the PROMISE is the one important feature of humanity that raises us (if we can so humbly say) above our cousins in the animal kingdom.
June 27, 2016
If you know anything about Searle, the majority of his important and notable works were done in the past. However, if you're unfamiliar with Searle and his point of view in the philosophy of mind (psst, he isn't a property dualist or materialist), then this might be a good book for an introduction on his point of view, but I think this is just a very condensed book on his views on consciousness and social reality (nicely presented in his 'The construction of social reality').
Also the book is very very short, so the educated lay person could finish this in an afternoon.
Also the book is very very short, so the educated lay person could finish this in an afternoon.
February 21, 2014
This is a short book created from lectures. It is easy to read and asks the important question "How do we fit in?" Searle accepts the dominant determinist view of the world as described by science, but insists that we take seriously our intuitive sense of being free. His effort to square the circle was, in the end, unconvincing to me. I won't go into it. What makes this book worth reading is his serious effort to bring freedom and neuroscience into a discourse. It is worth reading.
Want to read
July 3, 2008I never took John Searle seriously because I only knew him from Limited Inc., where Derrida rips him a new one about the whole speech acts thing. This book sounds awesome.
July 4, 2009
Searle's ideas reminded me a little bit of Jiddu Krishnamurti. They are both pretty tough-minded when it comes to dealing with the facts of neuroscience.
October 16, 2012
Not one of his best works. The Rediscovery of the Mind is much better. I don't think he solved the problem of freewill, but he was definitely right on the presumption part.
April 19, 2013
A very challenging book - even for a former Philosophy major - but
the writing style and the approach to the role Philosophy must take
in our day were both engaging and deeply reasoned.
the writing style and the approach to the role Philosophy must take
in our day were both engaging and deeply reasoned.
January 29, 2017
Interesting ideas on free will
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