Dr. John Searle

University of California, Berkeley, CA

Curator and author

• Chinese room argument
• (2009) John Searle

FEATURED AUTHOR

SCHOLARPEDIA ARTICLES

Chinese Room Argument

Scholarpedia, 4(8):3100. (2009)

John Searle

John Searle (b. July 31, 1932 in Denver, Colorado) started at University of Wisconsin, 1949 and was awarded the Rhodes Scholarship in Junior year in 1952 and obtained an Oxford BA in 1955. During his D.Phil, he also served as a Lecturer in Philosophy at the Christ Church College, Oxford. He obtained his D. Phil in 1959 and since then, has been at the University of California, Berkeley full-time. He is currently the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at Berkeley.

Dr. Searle is well known for his work on the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, consciousness, artificial intelligence, rationality and social reality among others. A proponent of biological naturalism, he views consciousness as a subjective experience borne out of physical brain processes. He is famous for the Chinese Room argument, which he presented to prove the falsity of strong artificial intelligence.

The author of 18 books, with works translated into 22 languages including the 1984 Reith Lectures book Minds, Brains and Science and The Mystery of Consciousness (1997), his work has also been the focus of several books and conferences. A recipient of numerous academic awards including the Mind and Brain Prize (2006) and Jean Nicod Prize (2000), Dr. Searle has served on editorial boards for philosophy and consciousness journals and has given several distinguished lectures all over the world. Apart from his scientific contributions, Dr. Searle has also contributed significantly to public service, and was honoured with the National Humanities Medal in 2005.

For more information about Dr. Searle's work, please see: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~jsearle/

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