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Article 4461 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: hughc@usage.csd.oz (Hugh Clapin)
Subject: Analyticity (was Re: The Systems Reply I)
Message-ID: <1992Mar14.233918.9766@usage.csd.unsw.OZ.AU>
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References: <1992Mar14.182737.15329@psych.toronto.edu>
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 1992 23:39:18 GMT

>From article <1992Mar14.182737.15329@psych.toronto.edu>, by michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar):
> 
> The first premise is simply that syntactic manipulation cannot on its own
> yield semantics, which has been argued to be an analytic truth by many
> philosophers who are not involved in the AI debate.
> 
>
[stuff deleted] 
> The Chinese Room gedanken, as I have argued many times, is not in itself
> the crucial argument.  It is merely an attempt to demonstrate the truth
> of the claim that syntactic manipulations can't yield semantics.  Even
> if this particular demonstration fails, the falsity of this premise has
> not been established.  Since this premise *is* taken to be analytic by
> many learned people, whereas the second above premise is, as far as I can
> tell, merely an assertion, it seems to me that the burden of proof is
> on those who wish to deny the first and assert the second to demonstate
> their falsity and truth, respectively.
> 
> - michael

I'm not sure how many philosophers these days are happy to rely
on an analytic/synthetic distinction. I'd be interested to know
which philosophers you have in mind.

hugh clapin
school of philosophy
university of new south wales.


