John Rogers Searle was an American philosopher, born in 1932 and died in 2025, widely noted for his contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and social philosophy. He held the Willis S. and Marion Slusser professorship at the University of California, Berkeley, where his work centered on philosophy of mind and language. His early research examined speech acts, building on the work of J.L. Austin and Ludwig Wittgenstein, and he gained particular recognition for the Chinese room argument, a thought experiment in which a person following a rulebook to manipulate Chinese symbols without understanding Chinese is used to challenge the claim that a computer running the right program could genuinely understand language or think.
Facts
Defining MomentFormulated the Chinese room argument attempting to refute the thesis of strong artificial intelligence 1 Office HeldWillis S. and Marion Slusser Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Language, University of California, Berkeley 1 TraditionPhilosophy of language; philosophy of mind; social philosophy; analytic philosophy 1 Tradition
Tradition (category) Connections
Associated With
Searle's 1980 Chinese Room argument, against strong AI's claim that a correctly programmed computer genuinely understands, is the field's single most discussed thought experiment.
Source Chinese Room (Wikipedia)
In Branch
Source John Searle (Wikipedia)
Source John Searle (Wikipedia)
In Tradition
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Source John Searle (Wikipedia)Lead sentence 1tier 2Quote, Lead sentence 1
John Rogers Searle ( ; July 31, 1932 – September 17, 2025) was an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy.
Sources
1. John Searle (Wikipedia)
WikipediaLife section, paragraph 1
Searle was born in Denver on July 31, 1932.
Life section (death)
He died at a hospital in Safety Harbor, Florida, on September 17, 2025, at the age of 93.
Introduction, paragraph 1
widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy
Lead section
was an American philosopher
Introduction, paragraph 2
His most famous philosophical contribution is the "Chinese room" argument, which attempts to refute the thesis of "strong" artificial intelligence.
In Branch: Philosophy of Mind, Lead
John Rogers Searle ( ; July 31, 1932, September 17, 2025) was an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy.
In Branch: Philosophy of Language, Lead
John Rogers Searle ( ; July 31, 1932, September 17, 2025) was an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy.
In Group: Analytic Philosophy Of Mind, Infobox: school_tradition
Analytic Direct realism
View the Source Chinese Room (Wikipedia)
WikipediaAssociated With: The Chinese Room Argument, Lead sectionQuote, Associated With: The Chinese Room Argument, Lead section
The argument was presented in a 1980 paper by the American philosopher John Searle, entitled 'Minds, Brains, and Programs' and published in the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences.
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