John Searle on Realism

John Searle gives a fascinating lecture on realism in modern philosophy at a conference at the University of Bonn on 26–28th March, 2012.



I think there are two points where Searle goes wrong: his unwillingness to accept that (1) some emergent properties – like the human mind – are so remarkable that they make a new ontological category, and (2), because of (1), we have good reason to consider Popper’s three worlds ontology as a realistic metaphysics.

On Popper’s three worlds ontology, see here and here.