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Article 3794 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: zeleny@boucher.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Robotic Follies
Message-ID: <1992Feb16.211812.8890@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: 17 Feb 92 02:18:09 GMT
References: <1992Feb6.221125.26525@nuscc.nus.sg> <1992Feb10.123736.8691@husc3.harvard.edu> <1992Feb15.011214.24421@nuscc.nus.sg>
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In article <1992Feb15.011214.24421@nuscc.nus.sg> 
smoliar@iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar) writes:

>In article <1992Feb10.123736.8691@husc3.harvard.edu> 
>zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:

MZ:
>>A caveat is in order: note that, since we have to commit ourselves to the
>>objectivity of belief attribution, we can't identify beliefs with
>>psychological states of the believer, but must treat them as his
>>propositional attitudes.  On the other hand, any analysis of belief must
>>give an account of Aristotle's observation of its logical opacity, i.e. the
>>fact that the set of a person's beliefs is not closed under the relation of
>>logical consequence, whence Church's restriction of synonymy relation from,
>>e.g. a criterion of logical equivalence that would be suitable for alethic
>>modality.  Furthermore, we must account for denotational opacity of belief,
>>i.e. the fact that the set of a person's belief is apparently not closed
>>under substitution of extensional identicals.  Church's system succeeds in
>>doing that by adopting Frege's principle that terms in belief contexts
>>denote the entities that would be their senses in ordinary contexts.

SS:
>I think this may get to the heart of Zeleny's conflict with Minsky.  It seems
>to me that Minsky is questioning whether or not the treatment of beliefs as
>propositional attitudes is an adequate model for some of the questions we may
>with to ask about the behavior of a reasoning individual.  

Hoping to avoid the repetition of the erstwhile inflammatory exchanges on
the subject of "informal logic", I am nonetheless compelled to inquire:
What do any of the "questions we may wish to ask about the behavior of a
reasoning individual" have to do with the subject matter of a discipline
ostensibly dedicated to the study of *valid* forms of reasoning?  If there
be doxastic logic, it must concern itself with questions of valid reasoning
about beliefs, no more, no less.  The study of behavior belongs to the
purview of natural sciences; likewise for the study of practical reasoning. 

SS:
>							   (Note, by the way,
>that I am not using "model" in the terminology of model theory.  Rather, I am
>using Minsky's definition.  While I recently posted it, a quick repetition may
>be in order since this is a different threat:
				       ^^^^^^

In light of Minsky's self-professed Freudianism, I am inclined to interpret
the above as a parapraxis; accordingly, I hasten to assure you that the
threat in question is of a purely intellectual nature.

SS:
>					       We start with an observer O who
>is observing some entity E.  E' is said to be a MODEL of E if O can use E' to
>answer questions that he has about E.  Note that Minsky does not say anything
>specific about WHAT those questions are.  What is important is the ternary
>relation which unites the observer's questions, the entity, and its model.)
>Thus, Minsky is interested in questions such as, "Why does this child keep
>repeating the action of piling blocks in a tower and then knocking them down?"
>or "Why does the child walk away from the blocks and look for something else to
>do?"  Minsky is questioning the adequacy of propositional attitudes as a
>foundation for dealing with such psychological questions of mind (since
>presumably the child is making some conscious decisions here);  and I,
>personally, do not think that his doubts have yet been satisfactorily
>addressed.

Again, what does all of this have to do with logic of belief?  If we are to
believe Freud (and Minsky certainly does), the reasons we may adduce for
our actions are nothing but ex post factum rationalizations of subconscious
conative impulses.  Setting this Schopenhaur-flavored Weltanschauung aside,
we may try to answer Minsky's questions with a full-blown theory of behavior
dispositions; however, unless you are prepared to be a behaviorist about
belief, this course of action would be orthogonal to our issue.

SS:
>One reason for doubting the power of propositional attitudes involves their
>own foundation on terms which denote concepts.  In THE MISMEASURE OF MAN (just
>to shift the arena over to Harvard, Mikhail), Stephen Jay Gould discusses the
>fallacy of REIFICATION--to wit, the misguided assumption that any word (term)
>we use can be reified into a concept.  Interestingly enough, the particular
>word Gould is picking on in this book is "intelligence."  Now, clearly, we
>can do all sorts of interesting things with these terms at a strictly formal
>level;  but to assume that those formal results may serve as a model of the
>human (or any animal) behavior we observe may lead to an inadvertent commission
>of this reification fallacy.  It seems to me that the burden of proof lies with
>the builder of the model being able to convince the observer that his questions
>can now be answered satisfactorily.

All observation that concerns me in this case is given by the data of
descriptive linguists.  My interest is in providing a theory of linguistic
meaning; for well-known reasons, it turns out that this theory is possessed
of a metaphysical import.  Hence we obtain an imposing abstract ontology of
propositions and concepts.  As for Gould's worries about reification, they
concern me no more than Jerry Fallwell's creationist theories concern him;
to put it bluntly, as a philosopher, Gould makes a damn good journalist.

MZ:
>>If you want to appreciate great art, you must be prepared to struggle with
>>it just as much as you would with the hardest science.  The claims of
>>recorded music peddlers notwithstanding, Mozart is not suitable for easy
>>listening any more than "Principia Mathematica" is suited for light reading.

SS:
>Well read though you are, I fear you may have missed Charles Rosen's article
>about Mozart in the December 19 issue of THE NEW YORK REVIEW.  He cites an
>interesting comment by E. T. A. Hoffmann concerned with the "appreciation"
>of a critical moment in DON GIOVANNI:
>
>	The professional musician, remarked Hoffmann, recognizes
>	and names the technical procedure with no difficulty:
>	the flatted sub-mediant holds no mystery for him.  The
>	general public, on the other hand, knows nothing of the
>	technique, but shivers with terror at the sudden harmonic
>	effect.  It is the half-educated amateur who is puzzled
>	by the chromatic change and is not sure what to call it.
>	The connoisseur and the completely ignorant join hands in
>	their understanding and admiration of the drama:  the
>	pretentious amateur is left being by the complexity of
>	the score.
>
>So it is that I believe that good philosophers are capable of a clarity which
>speaks equally well to the "connoisseur and the completely ignorant."  Such
>writers are rare.  Russell certainly had the talent and could use it to great
>advantage.  This is not to deny that mental effort is required, but before such
>effort is exerted the will must be motivated to do so.  The thought which first
>arrests one when one is in a state of ignorance may later be cultivated into a
>host of mature ideas.

I must have read Rosen's article and conveniently forgotten it; in any
case, I am saved from having to hunt for it in my NYRB pile by the fact
that I remember the eponymous Hoffmann story in question quite well.
Indeed, as bereft as I am of any substantive knowledge of musical
technique, its discussion of the opera has impressed me as the most
profound thing that could be said on the subject of Don Giovanni.  On the
other hand, I certainly wouldn't call Hoffmann an easy author; likewise, I
know of very few rank amateurs who managed to make their way past the
Introduction to "Principia Mathematica" without losing their amateur status
along the way.  Unfortunately, any meaningful discussion of semantics has
to involve formal concepts drawn from both philosophy and mathematics;
while I try, on occasion, to make my articles accessible to a serious
beginner, there is no way to do so without detriment to their content.

>-- 
>Stephen W. Smoliar; Institute of Systems Science
>National University of Singapore; Heng Mui Keng Terrace
>Kent Ridge, SINGAPORE 0511
>Internet:  smoliar@iss.nus.sg


`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'
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: Mikhail Zeleny                                                     :
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