John Searle Quotes

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

[William Jennings Bryan] thinks that to say something is to do something, which is an imperfect view of administration.

It is much easier to make the speeches than to finally make the judgments.

Happily I had very early learned the fallacy of building much on logic and verbal argument. Single sets of truths I knew to be as little conclusive in theology as in physics; and, in one as in the other, no theory to be worth anything, however plausibly backed up with Scripture texts or facts, which was not gathered bona fide from the analysis of all the attainable phenomena, and verified wherever possible by experiment.

Obviously something is wrong with the entire argument of "obviousness".

Sometimes my doubt seems intuitive, but most likely it derives from an implausibility or a logical problem I may at first find difficult to identify and articulate. It is interesting to me to work through questions that arise in this way.

I shall develop the thesis that anyone acting communicatively must, in performing any speech act, raise universal validity claims and suppose that they can be vindicated.

It doesn't sound like there was time for the word to be there. On the other hand, I didn't intentionally make an inane statement... certainly the 'a' was intended, because that's the only way the statement makes any sense.

Talk about rationality can get very confusing unless the things with which rationality deals are also included.

Nature is a temple, where the living Columns sometimes breathe confusing speech; Man walks within these groves of symbols, each Of which regards him as a kindred thing.

Proofs of the Euclidean [parallel] postulate can be developed to such an extent that apparently a mere trifle remains. But a careful analysis shows that in this seeming trifle lies the crux of the matter; usually it contains either the proposition that is being proved or a postulate equivalent to it.

Always read with a pen in your hands, not beside you on the table, but actually in your hand, ready, armed ... Put a question mark by everything you find suspect. Underline anything you really appreciate. Feel free to write 'splendid,' but also, 'I don't believe a word of it.' And even 'bullshit.'

The practice of "reviewing"... in general has nothing in common with the art of criticism.

Retrospective analysis is not a useful guide to current problems.

...a figure of speech can often get into a crack too small for a definition.

Too many facts are often as much of an obstacle to understanding as too few. There is a sense in which we moderns are inundated with facts to the detriment of understanding.

If you jump to conclusions, you make terrible landings.

It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.

Poverty continues to exist. Its appearance seems to be relentless in evidencing itself not only to all the things we experience here in America, but certainly what we see globally. And I don't see anywhere any philosophical analysis that suggests we know how to get out of this.

He was one of the few political leaders I have ever met whose public speeches revealed more than his private conversations. [On Ronald Reagan]

GRAVITATION, n. The tendency of all bodies to approach one another with a strength proportioned to the quantity of matter they contain-the quantity of matter they contain being ascertained by the strength of their tendency to approach one another. This is a lovely and edifying illustration of how science, having made A the proof of B, makes B the proof of A.

And in my mind, this settles the issue. I would never drink cologne, and am therefore not an alcoholic.

The Argument from Intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence.