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Article 4078 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: silber@orfeo.Eng.Sun.COM (Eric Silber)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <kqqeqdINN6kf@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 27 Feb 92 19:26:05 GMT
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References: <1992Feb22.181122.12088@oracorp.com> <6254@skye.ed.ac.uk> <1992Feb26.102122.22893@nuscc.nus.sg>
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In article <1992Feb26.102122.22893@nuscc.nus.sg> smoliar@iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar) writes:
>Well I think we can begin by questioning whether or not Harnad provided an
>explanation.  He provided a situation.  He uttered some Hungarian (supposedly),
>asked his audience if they understood, and claimed that they then knew "what
>understanding involves."  The situation was an instance of a verbal
>transaction. [ ... ]

 An act or transaction of Understanding associates a cognitive agent with
 a representation.  Understanding is always conditional, i.e. one
 understands a concept with respect to one or more representations.
 Example: 
 "A understands how a car works"
 If the proposition is true, then it means that A's 'understanding of
 how a car works' is associated with a representation. This 
 may be ( is ) only a partial representation: A's understanding is bound
 to a representation containing 'internal combustion', 'engine', etc.
 A's understanding of 'how a car works' may not include any understanding
 of 'chemical bond' .
 A and B may both understand how a car works, yet their understandings
 are not identical.
 Understanding is a transaction between a finite agent and a finite
 representation. 


