In this program, John Searle discusses the philosophy of language with Bryan Magee. This is from a 1977 series on Modern Philosophy called Men of Ideas. #Philosophy #BryanMagee #Searle
To me, someone who's interested in studying philosophy, these Bryan Magee videos are solid gold. Watching one of these advances my understanding further than a week of reading. And Bryan Magee himself always reenergizes my curiosity and enthusiasm to learn. He has a way of making it seem approachable and possible. He was truly the best philosophy teacher I know
I’d say Larry King was the greatest interviewer because he was so curious about people. Magee is so curious about philosophy, which makes him the ultimate philosophy interviewer.
And yet, you still haven't studied philosophy. There's something about ten hours of words in books as opposed to the screen and forty four minutes. One is superior with information and study.
Magee was the best. He had such a way of framing, asking questions and summarising that brought out the essence of the subject and his interviewee’s knowledge while making sure that the big picture was always present and the public was able to follow the discussion.
Now I see where Fry and Laurie got the inspiration for my fav sketches. “Language is my mother, my father, my husband, my brother, my sister, my whore, my mistress, my checkout girl. Language is a complimentary moist lemon-scented cleansing square or handy freshen-up wipe-ette. Language is the breath of God. Language is the dew on a fresh apple. It’s the soft rain of dust that falls into a shaft of morning light as you pluck from an old bookshelf a half-forgotten book of erotic memoirs. Language is the creak on a stair. It’s a spluttering match held to a frosted pane. It’s a half-remembered childhood birthday party. It’s the warm, wet, trusting touch of a leaking nappy, the hulk of a charred panzer, the underside of a granite boulder, the first downy growth on the upper lip of a Mediterranean girl. It’s cobwebs long since overrun by an old Wellington boot.”
Magee is a gifted teacher. He knows how to language the concepts in a manner that allows those of us who are not philosophers, but are interested in the topics, to really grasp how and why this all works. Right at the 15.00 mark is a good example of his mastery as a teacher. Without that review one could listen to this talk, follow it step by step but then be unable to share what one learned in a conversation. Given his cogent review, one gains the clarity that can be integrated, or actually learned. The fact that someone so advanced in the field can teach to neophytes so effectively is a gift.
This must be one of the most informative, energetic, and simply put, brilliant interviews I watched here. Simply put, there's so much to uncover; so much to be excited about; so much that you realize you don't know, but in a sense, for being such familiar questions, you recognize. I guess one watch won't be enough, and coming back for this video again will be necessary. John Searle is a fantastic speaker here, and Brian Magee is always a flawless conductor. Been following for some time now, probably 2 years or about it, and this is one of my favorite uploads. I know you keep it anonymous, but truly, whoever you are, thank you for these videos, and this one in particular.
36:43 That was captured by Isaiah Berlin perfectly in the interview with him:"The question of philosophy: If everything is like something, what this thing like?"
Anyone recall the late night 1980s UK Channel 4 Philosophy discussion show called 'Voices'. Searle featured on that show a fair bit. Wish I could find some of those episodes here on RU-vid.
It has always been my foremost interest to understand and teach, as I am an English teacher for kids. I aim to put some of Searle's ideas into practice, both in teaching and in discussions with my colleagues, regarding how language actually works. Language acquisition has been a recurrent problem in national curricula, and I would love to fully comprehend its mechanisms. While this video was highly informative, it seemed to me that there wasn't enough time for Searle to elaborate further. I would have loved to see him speak for hours.
It’s an interesting story in that he had an essentially failed theory of linguistics that was, decades later, resurrected and used as an unfalsifiable tool for literary/political analysis. It’s very popular in fields other than linguistics.
Language is not the ‘label’ of objects in reality it enables the cognitive manipulation of objects, to characterize relationships of objects and generate meaning.
@@glenrotchin5523 How do you know anything exists outside of "oneself"? "Reality" is a word in a language system, it has no objective meaning outside of that language system.
@@croissants1280 if we have bodies that occupy space than we know there is a boundary between ourselves and objects that exist outside and independent of ourselves. No word has any ‘objective’ meaning, in the sense that it means exactly the same to everyone.
@@glenrotchin5523 We are playing a language game here. All words only have meaning in relation to other words within the same language system. Nothing can be proven by language outside of that language system. Like you say a word has no objective meaning. It is just a language game. What you call "reality" or "object" is just a part of that system or game. Nothing more.
Wells' are area and we are an area ourselves, leaving and taking in trails of what we we're of at vhebmoment while we we're passed through. The area (at this time) is who i am and is against, from Mexicos side (south). Is it shartling to have someone yell suddenly in your ear? If yes its a softer wall than a weapon or firecracker would be if filing next to ear, for one all of a sutton example.
Language is our glue that sticks together society. When language breaks down society breaks down - silly car licence plate, twitter abbreviations, meaningless slogans on t-shirts, meaningless tattoos on skin. Society is not destroying language, language is. IMHO
Language are fundamental because ordinary people can learn from the smarter ones. Language is also very vage and easy to misunderstand, which is why scientist use mathematics. Quantum physics can only be "understood" by using very sophisticated math. R. Feynman said, if someone believes he understand quantum mechanics he has not understood it.
man. All these cats really missed all the phil of lang in the Late Nietzsche. Witt def read him, but not all that closely, unfortunately. N was first on the stage with this stuff, in my opinion.
Some dated ideas about language there. Of course you can have the experience of holding a glass of water without having the linguistic equipment. We see stuff around us that we can't name or categorize all the time. Language is dissociated from thought and they both interface, but in reality are quite separate.
‘Language is dissociated from thought and they both interface, but in reality are quite separate’ The word language is used to mean the language that exists in a persons head, and how it functions. Like often happens, people get confused about the semantics, and are taking language to mean something like ‘words’. The current best idea in linguistics is that language actually IS thought. Animals communicate just fine without it. Language does have obvious and useful epiphenomena, which can be easily intuited and complicates the idea.
Searle says it’s language that gives us the world of discrete objects thru conceptual categories. WHA ? An infant responds in a similar way to mom and dad, and a different way to a rubber ball, because it recognizes that his parents are qualitatively similar to each other, and different than the ball, before it knows any words or concepts or categories like mother, father, human, parent, ball, or toy. Whenever I listen to philosophers, I end up disagreeing right away with their highly generalized assertions, so the rest seems without foundation.
The primary purpose of language is NOT communication with cohumans, as it is universally belirved as indisputable fact, but understanding the connection between one's own survival and how the earth functions. Communication with other humans can only be useful to that extent as the former (communication with the earth) is achieved. Hence, the one with more knowledge of how the earth's function helps one to survive will inevitably dominate the secondary function (communicating with cohumans). This, in fact, is the third (so far unrecognized by any linguist) function of language, in addition to the 2 well recognized results of it, Searle mentions here, talking and writing: linking events inside our body that changes the content of the air we exhale and other substances (excreta) we release to the physical environment. That is why science serves, and is almost exclusively sustained by, weapons manufacture. That is also the reason why, irrespective of all the talk about virtues and democracy, final decisions are always taken by the ones with the most destructive wespons. Mathematics links language to physics of the earth ~ the single reason why it is more effective. What we call "precise" means "how well the word helps link our activity to functioning of the earth".
"The treatment of landlords in Berkeley is comparable to the treatment of blacks in the South... our rights have been massively violated and we are here to correct that injustice."
Yes, and he was predicting a lot of the major themes of the cognitive revolution that happened from the late '80s and 1990s. I was really interested to see how well he laid them out so early and almost preemptively excited for the people working in the lines he mentioned for where I knew they would soon be going.
Searle has it backwards. Ability to sense abstractions first, then complexity, then codes, then consensus, then communication attempted/pretended, then editing by application of the original abstract ability, to attempting communion by perception, analysis, pattern relationship, ultimately attempting form---always provisional...never secure/absolute. The original intelligence is abstract---it is attempt to perceive actual abstract relationship...language is reific, and must always bow to abstract awareness.
