From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!christo Tue Mar 24 09:56:34 EST 1992
Article 4531 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: The Systems Reply I
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1992Mar15.011107.7828@news.media.mit.edu> <1992Mar16.171520.15584@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Mar17.020503.9967@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Message-ID: <1992Mar18.035719.3394@psych.toronto.edu>
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1992 03:57:19 GMT

In article <1992Mar17.020503.9967@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:
>
>Throwing around various references to the philosophy of language is all
>very well, but the fact is that even in the most sophisticated
>philosophical discussions there's no sufficiently well-developed
>understanding of the notions of "syntax" and "semantics" that allows you
>to say that "syntax is not sufficient for semantics" is some kind
>of widely accepted truth.  

Well, all I can say to this, Dave, is that it depends on who you want to
depend on as allies.  An analogy to Kohlberg's stages of moral development
occurs to me. You know the Heinz dilemma, right? Heinz' wife is dying of
some disease. The local druggist has the cure, but will only sell it for
a price beyond Heinz' means. Should Hienz steal the drug? According to
Kohlberg, people at different levels of moral development will give the
same answer, but *for different reasons*. Thus, someone a level 1 will
say "Yes, he should" for purley selfish reasons. Someone at level 6 will
say "Yes, he should" as well, but because of a well worked-out universal
order of moral priorities (e.g., property only has value in relation to
human life, therefore human life has moral priority over property, or some
such). To get back to the central question, I disagree with nothing you've
said above, but you've read the important work in the area, and are aware
of what's actually contentious and what trivially true about the 
distinction between syntax and semantics. A lot of people arguing against
Searle apparently haven't and, therefore, whether their answers are
'right' or 'wrong' is immaterial. It's sort of like (well, actually,
quite like) the difference between having true belief and having *justified*
true belief.

>As far as I can tell, the question is rarely discussed.  

I'm not really sure what you mean by this. From my point of view, it's
practically the only question that's discussed, though perhaps not in
this exact form.

[stuff by me about Fodor, Dretske, Putnam, and Millikan deleted]
>
>It's very amusing that you bring these up, because common to most
>of these authors is the notion that semantics essentially comes
>down to correlation, or covariation (plus or minus some bells
>or whistles).  

This is what I means by it's the only thing discussed. Everyone's
trying to reduce semantics to syntax like crazy, and no one seems
able to do it. Reference is the big sticking point, and even if that
get's fixed up, sense will do the next set of theories in (see Fodor's
critique of Millikan in _Theory of Content_.)

>These are just the kinds of theories that Michael Gemar would scream
>something like "but that's a *syntactic* notion of information"
>at (as I saw in a recent post).  

Well, I'll let Michael speak for himself, but I think he's on my side
on this. He's not against constitutionally against all current theories
of semantics (except inasmuch as they all fail, but we all know that).
He's against people who don't know any of this material passing judgment
on Searle, as thought knowing how to program were the only important
thing in the world.

-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
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