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Article 1683 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: semiotics and cognitive science
Message-ID: <5722@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 27 Nov 91 19:52:42 GMT
References: <4219@anaxagoras.ils.nwu.edu> <e6JRBB3w164w@depsych.Gwinnett.COM>
Reply-To: jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton)
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 23

In article <e6JRBB3w164w@depsych.Gwinnett.COM> rc@depsych.Gwinnett.COM (Richard Carlson) writes:
>Here's the sticking point, though: because people in the logical
>analysis tradition are preprogrammed ("set?") to see reciprocal
>processes which move back and forth in small steps as "circular
>reasoning" and believe implicitly that one process has to be the
>"real" process while the other is merely epiphenomenal, they have
>to argue that one of the levels, either the intentional or the
>intensional/extensional is the key one.

I don't understand why you say in one message that you don't
know very much about analytic philosophy and would like
recommendations for introductory texts -- and then in another
message not long after claim to know how members of that
tradition are preprogrammed.  (Perhaps it's only someone
preprogrammed in the logical analysis tradition who would
find this puzzling.)

In any case, do you really think that people who understand how
recursive and mutually recursive functions can work without being
fatally circular (to pick just one example) would automatically
assume that reciprocal processes are fatally circular?  Why
does their preprogramming mislead them in one case but not the
other?


