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Article 4696 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Keywords: meaning, understanding
Message-ID: <6515@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 24 Mar 92 18:38:57 GMT
References: <1992Mar10.204754.1137@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <6384@skye.ed.ac.uk> <1992Mar12.032616.13364@cis.ohio-state.edu>
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In article <1992Mar12.032616.13364@cis.ohio-state.edu> chandra@boa.cis.ohio-state.edu (B Chandrasekaran) writes:
>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.  

I have nothing against a genuine attempt to find a definition for
the sense in which Searle uses "understand" or to find out what
that or other senses of understanding involve.  But what we mostly
get is demands from one side that those on the other produce a
definition that the first side would accept.

Now, if we did have a genuine discussion (rather than attempts to
assign the burden of proof), I think what me might find is that the
two sides prefer different senses of "understand".  Suppose we
number senses to distinguish them.  Perhaps the dispute would
turn out to be between people who say system understands(1) and
those who say it doesn't understand(2), in which case the dispute
may be a "merely verbal" one -- or a fight over who gets to claim
the word "understand".

>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."

A reasonable tactic would be to try to show that "I understand
Chinese" is normally something about which someone could be mistaken,
or else to try to show that the normal considerations don't apply
whenever the person is the one in the Chinese Room.  A desparate
tactic might be to try to force the other side to prove the person
could not be mistaken and then raise all kinds of special case
counterexamples to any attempted proof.

-- jeff


