Summary of John R. Searle's Seeing Things as They Are - E-book - ePub

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The mistake of Dualism, Materialism, Monism, and Functionalism is the belief that there is a special problem about the relation of the mind to the body, consciousness to the brain, and in their fixation on the illusion that there is a problem, philosophers have fixated on different solutions to the problem. #2 When you look around you, you will see objects and states of affairs that have an independent existence completely separate from your perception of them.
The objects and states of affairs exist independent of being experienced by us. #3 When you begin to theorize, you will notice a third feature in addition to the objective reality and the subjective experience: a causal relation by which the objective reality causes the subjective experience. The two descriptions are exactly the same because a main biological function of perceptual experience is to give you knowledge about the real world. #4 The intentionality of a state is its directedness at or about or of objects and states of affairs in the world.
States of undirected anxiety or nervousness are not intentional, at least when the subject is just anxious or nervous without being anxious or nervous about anything in particular.