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From: rhh@research.att.com (Ron Hardin <9289-11216> 0112110)
Subject: Re: NEW: Does AI make philosophy obsolete?
Message-ID: <DEJpxC.HFB@research.att.com>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ
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Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 17:29:36 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.ai:33223 sci.cognitive:9478 sci.psychology.theory:599

John McCarthy writes:
>Analytic philosophy should not be identified with logical positivism,
>and AI is one of the killers of logical positivism.  It is very hard
>to seriously design a robot that (a) operates in the real world, and
>(b) treats the world as a construct from its inputs (sense organs).

ok. analytic philosophy 

>As for J. L. Austin of "How to do things with words", his (and John
>Searle's) work on speech acts is indeed to be made obsolete by
>computer science and AI.  Matters take a much more concrete form when
>one asks what promises an airline reservation system *should* make to
>its customers.

If you're toppled Austin, I'd like to hear how.  (Not same as Searle)

Austin was chiefly concerned to topple positivism.
Far from having a theory of speech acts, he distrusted theory.

The thing to take from Austin is his ear for the language,
and for examples to think with.
