[Wittrs] Re: The CRA: Is the Third Premise True?
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 08 Apr 2010 14:37:47 -0000
I should have added this:
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Gordon Swobe <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
>
> --- On Wed, 4/7/10, SWM <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
>
> > if Searle's argument is so simple, as Gordon puts it, that even
> > a kindergartner would understand it (and, presumably, thereby agree),
> > how is it that all these heavily credentialed non-kindergartners
> > criticize it and, according to Searle, don't understand it?
>
> As Budd tried to point out, I referred to the subject in the title of thread:
> the third axiom in Searle's formal argument.
>
The argument against the CRA per se IS an argument against one or more of its
premises since, if the premises are all true and have the relation the argument
implies they have, then the argument must be seen to be true. Note that the
systems reply (supported by the Churchlands and Dennett, among others) IS about
the third premise, both its truth and its implications. Recall that Dennett
challenges the CRA on the grounds that 1) the systems reply is the right one
and 2) that it is right because it correctly poses the possibility that
understanding may be a function of a more robust system than Searle's CR has
been specked to be.
> And yes I maintain that even a kindergartner could understand the third
> axiom, even if various philosophers might have a problem with the entire
> argument. In fact every *serious* reply to the CRA starts with the
> recognition that, at the very least, Searle got it right that syntax doesn't
> give semantics.
>
The rest of this is addressed in my other response nearby, to wit that
understanding does not imply agreement -- contra, your apparent supposition,
Gordon (a supposition implied by your insistence "that even a kindergartner
could understand" -- in response to the criticism that the third premise is
flawed because of its equivocal form AND because it assumes the conclusion it
supposedly leads to, i.e., a conclusion that's dependent on a pre-existing
commitment to an idea that understanding can ONLY be a process level property
-- a commitment assumed, NOT established, by the Chinese Room thought
experiment).
SWM
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