From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usenet.coe.montana.edu!milton!forbis Mon Dec 16 11:02:14 EST 1991
Article 2154 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: forbis@milton.u.washington.edu (Gary Forbis)
Subject: Re: Meaning and Agency
Message-ID: <1991Dec16.070537.7377@milton.u.washington.edu>
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
References: <1991Dec10.013916.6386@husc3.harvard.edu> <1991Dec11.042430.13871@milton.u.washington.edu> <1991Dec13.164821.6536@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1991 07:05:37 GMT

I may come back to other parts of the article but here I will deal with a
specific poor statement on my part.

In article <1991Dec13.164821.6536@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>In article <1991Dec11.042430.13871@milton.u.washington.edu> 
>forbis@milton.u.washington.edu (Gary Forbis) writes:

MZ:
>(1) Saying that an agent A meant p by s is equivalent to saying that A
>intended the utterance of s to produce a specifiable effect with the
>propositional content p in his audience by means of their recognition of
>his intention in the context of s.  The propositional content p can be
>uniquely associated with the equivalence class of sentence-tokens
>synonymous with s in the contexts of their utterance, as determined by the
>semantic conventions of the language employed by A.  Note that p is not
>necessarily open to the awareness of A; in other words, A doesn't
>necessarily know what he means by s, as opposed to what he intends it to
>convey.  He must nevertheless commit himself to the objective meaning of
>his utterance, which transcends his subjective intention, and can only be
>determined culturally and contextually.

I'm a little confused by this.  May I assume that the agent "Saying that
an agent A meant p by s" need not be A?  That is to say, the language 
employed by A need not be available to the agent saying "agent A meant
p by s"?

>(2) Saying that s meant p is equivalent to saying that there exists an
>intentional causal relation between the occurrence of s and an agent's
>prior meaning p by a type-identical utterance s' meaning p.
>
>(3) Saying that s means p is equivalent to saying that the occurrence of s
>can be causally associated with a type-identical possible utterance of s'
>by an assumed agent meaning p.

>GF:
>>[For any language used by a philosopher there are a finite number of 
>> utterances and within these utterances a finite number of symbols.
>> The meaning of these symbols are communicated syntatically.  There exists
>> other languages for which these same symbols uttered in the same order
>> are syntactically correct.  Up to this point I have considered your
>> language to be somewhat different from what I now consider it.]

Geez, did I ever goof this up.

MZ:
>On the contrary, Chomsky will be happy to tell you that for any language
>used by a philosopher there is an infinite number of possible utterances,
>each containing a finite number of symbols.  Furthermore, I believe the
>meaning to be communicated pragmatically as well as syntactically.

While there is an infinite number of possible utterances in any language
there are a finite number of utterances by any particular philosopher.  Within
these constraints there are an infinite number of possible languages for
which the propostional contents P can be uniquely associated with the
equivalence class of sentence-tokens synonymous with the sentences S
uttered by A.  (well it seems formal enough, I hope it has some content.)
I think one can refer to Geodel's incompleteness theorem for a sketch of
such a proof.

This being the case, I don't know how an agent can know what she means by
any particular utterance in that even to oneself one has a finite set of
conscious thoughts (or may I be so presumptious?)

--gary forbis


