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Article 4423 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: chandra@boa.cis.ohio-state.edu (B Chandrasekaran)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Keywords: meaning, understanding
Message-ID: <1992Mar12.032616.13364@cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 12 Mar 92 03:26:16 GMT
References: <1992Mar6.214616.18384@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Mar10.204754.1137@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <6384@skye.ed.ac.uk>
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In article <6384@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>  Is there really a big mystery about what "understand Chinese"
>means?
>
>It seems to me that the anti-Searle side is resorting to some rather
>desperate strategies these days, like supposing that the person in
>the Chinese Room might be mistake about whether or not they understand
>Chinese, or else trying to put off any consideration of Searle's
>argument by endless disputes over the word "understand".
>

Come on, Jeff, the entire argument of Searle revolves around his
appealing to the notion of "understand Chinese."  Obviously people who
disagree with Searle are likely to disagree precisely at that place in
the argument where the weight rests.  	It appears that people have
radically different intuitions about what "understand" means and
entails.  Hence all this debate about that word.  

The question is whether a person can be mistaken about his sense that
he does or does not understand something.  When a person says, "My
head hurts," no one can say, "no it doesn't."  Is "understanding
Chinese" a claim of this type?  This issue needs clarification.  It
won't do for you to accuse opponents of "desperate tactics."

Actually, I think that we need to make a distinction between the
claim, "I understand Chinese," and the claim, after engaging in an
apparently successful conversation with a Chinese speaker, "Hm, Gee,
it looks like I really did understand what the guy was talking about.
Its funny, just yesterday I told my wife I thought I no longer
understood Chinese, having been out of China so long."  I think a
person could be mistaken about the former, but not the latter.  And I
think what Searle needs is only the latter sense of "understand
Chinese."  But I do feel that more discussion on this topic is needed.


