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Article 1493 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: kurt@diku.dk (Kurt M. Alonso)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: semiotics and cognitive science
Message-ID: <1991Nov22.113551.9385@odin.diku.dk>
Date: 22 Nov 91 11:35:51 GMT
References: <4219@anaxagoras.ils.nwu.edu> <e6JRBB3w164w@depsych.Gwinnett.COM>
Sender: kurt@rimfaxe.diku.dk
Organization: Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen
Lines: 63

rc@depsych.Gwinnett.COM (Richard Carlson) writes:

>> I'm not sure what work John was referring to, but I see a need in much
>> of current cognitive science for models that can infer mutual belief from
>> limited evidence.  The work in analogical reasoning, for example, needs a
>> better account of how the boundary of an analogy is determined (e.g. if I say
>> "Bob is a pig", should you think I meant he has disgusting personal habits,
>> or that he has a short curly tail?).  Theorists in that subfield readily
>> acknowledge the frozen, conventional nature of metaphor, but don't seem at
>> all interested in offering an account of how "frozenness" develops or is
>> recognized.
>> 
>> The inferential power needed to do this *will* be great, but without it,
>> what hope have we of doing speech acts any justice?  I have not read the
>> Sperber and Wilson book, but I'm highly suspicious of any theory that claims
>> to account for relevance or context without relying in some way on mutual
>> belief.

>I think the problem here is the question of what are the real
>psychological _units_ we are dealing with and what _levels_ of
>units do we have.  It's interesting that some people in the
>"logical analysis" tradition go back to intentions as important
>constructs in understanding utterances.  "Intentions" are the
>basic building blocks (primitives?) of phenomenological philosophy
>and of gestalt psychology (i.e., very "continental").  But then
>the intention is expressed in an utterance (conceived here as a
>"speech act") which itself is made up of units (of something).
>Presumably the terms (words, tokens, signifiers, whatever) are the
>units here.  My guess is that there is a "reciprocal" or
>"dialectical" movement back and forth between the two levels with
>the intention functioning as part of the context telling you
>whether Bob is a slob or Bob will eat anything or Bob has a tail.
>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 know if I fully understand your point. I'll add a few comments
anyway.

I would object that in fact there is no such categorical difference
between a speech act (in abstract) and its semantical intentionality.
On the contrary, I would say, that they belong to the same domain
(except, perhaps, for the intentionality of the _Discourse_ of the
discourses, for logical reasons, and to avoid moral relativism). 
The fact that its particular utterance changes as the discourse develops
shows that it relies on it being expressed in the same terms as given in 
the universe of the discourse. Isn't it so, in definitive,  that the 
intentionality of a discourse (discourse meant in general,'a la Foucault') 
is in time as the discourse itself is?


Kurt.

>--
>Richard Carlson        |    rc@depsych.gwinnett.COM
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