Philosopher John Searle on Perception, Mind, Matter and Consciousness

One of America's most prominent philosophers says his field has been tilting at windmills for nearly 400 years. Representationalism – the idea that we don't directly perceive objects in the world, only our mental images of them – has bedeviled philosophy ever since Descartes, and now it's mucking up neuroscience as well, John Searle alleges. He has long defended the “naïve” alternative – that our senses do give us direct access to reality – and he fires his latest salvo in his new book “Seeing Things as They Are.” John is well-known for his no-nonsense approach to philosophical problems and there was plenty of straight talk as we discussed his theory of perception, the subjective-objective divide, the scientific study of consciousness and his dog Tarski.