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"I never took Hayek seriously until after he was dead."

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John Ess Posted: Fri, Oct 10 2008 3:54 PM

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An interesting bit I saw in the Journal of Economic Methodology, wherein Stephen Boem puts forward that John Searle's ideas about the mind are echoes of Hayek's theories of central planning. An exerpt:

Peter Boettke and J. Robert Subrick show that Hayek’s criticism of central

planning nds echoes in Searle’s criticism of the computational theory of the

mind. In its strongest version the mind is to the brain what the software is to

the hardware. Conceiving of the mind as a computer programme misses an

important distinction that Searle makes much of in his rebuttal of Strong

Arti cial Intelligence (AI): the distinction between syntax and semantics. The

cognitive revolution’s obsession with the mind as a processor of information

has borne out that information is indi¡erent to meaning. The mind has more

than a formal structure, it has more going on in it than the manipulation of

formal symbols: it has semantical content. Computer programmes, on the

other hand, are entirely syntactical. With Searle and Hayek one can argue

against the idea of central planning that ‘information’ does not name a real

causal feature of the world. Except for the information that is already in the

mind of some conscious agent, information is observer-relative. Information

is anything that we may use as information.

In his comment, Steven Horwitz, explicitly raises the issue of personal

relations between Searle and Hayek. It is bound to raise a few eyebrows to

learn that when in 1999 the German weekly DIE ZEIT ran a survey about ‘the

book of the century,’ Searle opted for The Road to Serfdom (see issue dated 8

July 1999). It should also be reported in this connection that in an interview

for ReasonMagazine (February 2000) Searle recalls that on publication of his

Reith Lectures, Minds, Brains and Science, in 1984 he received a ‘very gracious

letter’ from Hayek accompanied by a copy of The Sensory Order. Unfortunately,

‘ecause everybody spoke so badly of him, I [Searle] never took

Hayek seriously until after he was dead.’

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Magnus replied on Fri, Oct 10 2008 7:48 PM

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Quite a while back I started a thread where I wanted to bring attention to John Searles work, I really like his work, unfortunately hardly anyone responded.

I don't know that much about his philosophical work on language (I hear it's really good though) but his writings on the nature of the mind and counciousness is an absolute must for anyone intrested in philosophy. Searle's views on epistemology and ontology are very similar to those of Mises and Rand and I happen to know that he really hates post modernism and materialism. if I recall correctly, he believes that the problem of materialism is ironically that it's view on the mind is not nearly materalistic enough! Meaning; the materialist tries to reduce conciousness into computation or syntax when in fact we need to respect biology and the neurons in the brain for what they are...or something like that, I don't really remember ;)

If anyone is interested in getting a general idea of his views I know that he has a 12 part lecture series on the topic that can be dowloaded from somewhere

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Jon Irenicus replied on Fri, Oct 10 2008 7:49 PM

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I'm doing a course on the philosophy of the mind so it's very possible I'll encounter some of Searle's works.

-Jon

Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...

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aestheticbend replied on Tue, Oct 14 2008 8:45 PM

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I really like Searle's work as well, and in many cases I use his work as a justification in discussions for Classical Liberal views on economics, and politics, especially those which correspond to Hayek's argument against the comprehensive rationalism of enlightenment philosophy.

I also really like Searle's understanding of mental states as ontologically subjective and epistemically objective. He allows for the existence of social facts (things that only exist because we all have a specific attitude towards them), rather than brute facts. This idea of social fact, provides an excellent way of understanding things that are only true in virtue of our collective intentionality towards them, like fiat currency for example....

There is an also an essay from Searle that is apparently called "How to Derive an Ought from an Is", in which he opposes Hume's distinction. I have not gotten around to reading it yet, but I can imagine this would appeal to both Objectivists and those In the Neo Aristotleian tradition generally.

http://aestheticbend.blogspot.com/

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corpus delicti replied on Wed, Oct 15 2008 2:25 AM

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Magnus, just to let you know. Your thread did not go unnoticed. I was just not an active member at the time. I have his 12 part lecture series precisely because of your thread, so thank you.

However, I still haven't got much to add to a discussion of John Searle. I have been so intrigued, though, that once I've finished my master's degree I hope to compose a symposium titled something along the lines of: "Mind, Body, Action" (with an undecided subtitle). As I see it there are strong similarities between Mises, Hayek, Searle, earlier works of Richard Dawkins, earlier works of Roy Bhaskar (critical realism) and a number of other authors.

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Magnus replied on Wed, Oct 15 2008 8:22 AM

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aestheticbend:

I really like Searle's work as well, and in many cases I use his work as a justification in discussions for Classical Liberal views on economics, and politics, especially those which correspond to Hayek's argument against the comprehensive rationalism of enlightenment philosophy.

I also really like Searle's understanding of mental states as ontologically subjective and epistemically objective. He allows for the existence of social facts (things that only exist because we all have a specific attitude towards them), rather than brute facts. This idea of social fact, provides an excellent way of understanding things that are only true in virtue of our collective intentionality towards them, like fiat currency for example....

There's a Robert LeFevre lecture that can be found here on mises.org which reminds me of Searles views on this topic. http://mises.org/Controls/Media/MediaPlayer.aspx?Id=2219

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John Ess replied on Wed, Oct 15 2008 1:31 PM

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I also made a short-lived thread about Searle recently. There is a lecture of his on youtube in which he talks about fiat currency briefly in one section and collective intentionality. I believe it's called the "logical structure of society."

His lecture 'beyond dualism' is also good -- someone actually comes in loaded with aggressive questioning and he does a pretty good job of defending his position.