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>From: zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Meaning and Agency (was re: Searle and the Chinese Room)
Message-ID: <1991Dec10.013916.6386@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: 10 Dec 91 06:39:13 GMT
References: <1991Dec8.062341.28537@milton.u.washington.edu> 
 <1991Dec8.164459.6318@husc3.harvard.edu> <1991Dec9.091317.2145@milton.u.washington.edu>
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In article <1991Dec9.091317.2145@milton.u.washington.edu> 
forbis@milton.u.washington.edu (Gary Forbis) writes:

>In article <1991Dec8.164459.6318@husc3.harvard.edu> 
>zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:

>>In article <1991Dec8.062341.28537@milton.u.washington.edu> 
>>forbis@milton.u.washington.edu (Gary Forbis) writes:

GF:
>>>I'm not sure I want to consider the semantic role of volition.  Why should I
>>>do so?  Does this have more to do with your concept of "agency"?  Is this
>>>an introduction of willfull non-determinism?  It may be that in my teleology
>>>this is limited to the deity.  Is our discussion of semantics limited to
>>>those who believe in free will?  I really doubt this.

MZ:
>>Our discussion of semantics is not limited to those who believe in free
>>will, but to those who practice it; if I wanted to talk to the Almighty, I
>>wouldn't use the net.  Still, if you'd rather, I could interpret what
>>appears to be your words as His own utterances; still, the semantic role of
>>His volition would be relevant to our discussion.  Semantics without agency
>>is simply inconceivable.

GF:
>Not only can I conceive of semantics without agency but I have done so.  What
>I have conceived may be malformed but it has matured to such an extent that
>it has offspring of its own.

Let's go back a bit.  When you ask yourself the eternal question, "Why does
it hurt when I pee?", do you, in concluding that your symptoms mean that
you have a case of clap, conclude also that the gonococcus is a symbol
thereof?

GF:
>I don't understand how one can consider a theory about semantics without
>a prior theory about agency if the latter is so integral to the former as
>to make the former inconceivable without the latter.  If I grant this then
>there can be no argument which gives the former to our machines without
>this theory I have yet to see--if I grant that agency is required for
>semantics I have given away the game.  

On the contrary, you can have a formal semantic theory of the ontological
kind, e.g. Church's Logic of Sense and Denotation, of Montague grammar,
without a prior theory of action.  On the other hand, once you pose the
question of the linguistic meaning, such a theory becomes necessary.  This
follows from elementary consideration of the traditional communication
scheme: an addressor must be an agent, just as an addressee must be a
patient.  Otherwise, we are back to the wily gonococcus.

GF:
>I have always assumed that the semantics of a symbol exist independent of
>the agent using it (I'm not sure I'm using agency in the way you mean it.) 

I have argued that your assumption is wrong.  If you find my argument
obscure or unconvincing, you should see H.P.Grice's discussion of the
difference between natural and non-natural meaning in his classic paper
"Meaning", reprinted in his "Studies in the Way of Words".

GF:
>It turns out my teleology doesn't involve "agency" (as I think you define
>it) at all.  All my uncaused causes are random.   Am I using "denote" and
>"symbol" incorrectly when within my world view I think of a symbol as an
>entity which denotes another entity?  Can an entity use a symbol and not
>be an agent?  Can an entity use a symbol without denoting?  What is
>a symbol if it does not denote?

I've always understood Aristotle's discussion of *telos*, or final cause,
in the Metaphysics (e.g. Book \Delta 2, 1013b) as depending on agency;
perhaps you could persuade me that one could meaningfully talk of the end
of a thing, i.e. that for the sake of which a thing is, without thereby
presupposing noetic and/or somatic agency.  How can an entity use anything
without being an agent, and the thing used, a patient?  On the other hand,
a connotative symbol doesn't have to denote (e.g. `the fountain of youth',
alas); still, it has to express a meaning (i.e. stand for/represent
something else, if only an abstract concept), or else it's not a symbol...

GF:
>Thanks for your time.

My pleasure.

>--gary forbis@u.washington.edu


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