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PHILOSOPHERS NEWSContemporary philosophers · ideas · books
Philosopher
American philosopher of language and mind — 1932–2025
University of California, Berkeley · United States · d. 31 July 1932 (Denver, Colorado) — 17 September 2025 (Safety Harbor, Florida)
Extended J. L. Austin's work into a systematic theory of speech acts, and devised the Chinese Room argument against the claim that a program can understand. In 2019 the University of California, Berkeley revoked his emeritus status following a finding that he had violated its sexual harassment policies.
Karl Popper died on 17 September 1994, John Searle on the same date in 2025, Hildegard of Bingen in 1179. Thirty-nine men signed a constitution in Philadelphia on the day in 1787. Each answered the same question differently: when someone claims to know, who or what stands behind the claim?
John Searle, Karl Popper
OpenAI says an internal system proved that a three-dimensional fluid can blow up in finite time, and Lean agrees. The theorem is narrower than the headlines, the credit is contested, and the deeper question is what mathematics loses when a result is certified but unread.
John Searle
Herman Cappelen and Rachel Sterken's open-access collection asks whether what passes between a person and a language model is communication at all. Sixteen chapters, one of which argues the volume's own premise is false. A review of the arguments, and of what the book declines to notice.
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Saul Kripke, John Searle
A UCSF team has shown that one sheet of electrodes can decode attempted speech and attempted gesture at the same time in people with paralysis. The vocabularies are tiny and the claims modest. The philosophical problem is sharper than the headlines: who holds the record of an intention that was never carried out.
David Chalmers, Andy Clark, Miranda Fricker, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, John Searle
