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From: dave@cogsci.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Searle and Radical Translation (was: Re: Searle and Biology)
Message-ID: <51398@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: 19 Jul 90 04:25:26 GMT
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In article <606@ntpdvp1.UUCP> kenp@ntpdvp1.UUCP (Ken Presting) writes:

>Searle does not say much about how to determine whether symbols have any
>semantics attached, but he is unlikely to object strongly to the "Radical
>Interpretation" of Davidson (and Quine), which is well-known and very 
>influential among philsophers of language.
>
>Radical Interpretation *is* based on observations of behavior.  (Cf. WVO
>Quine, _Word and Object_, and D. Davidson, _Inquiries into Truth and 
>Interpretation_)

Searle is, and has been for more than 20 years, one of the most prominent
opponents of Radical Translation/Interpretation.  I can't imagine anybody
whose views are more diametrically opposed to this theory than Searle.
Please get your facts straight.

All this, of course, is grounded in Searle's complete rejection of
behaviourism of any sort (including behavioural criteria for the
ascription of semantic contents).  Searle believes in "intrinsic
intentionality", i.e. that semantic contents are intrinsic to our
brains and fully determined.  (See his book _Intentionality_ for
many arguments against underdetermination.)

Despite Searle's protestations, however, intentionality (i.e. semantics)
is irrelevant to the Chinese Room argument.  The argument is an argument
about *consciousness* (phenomenology, qualia, subjective experience, pick
your favourite term), and even if the argument were sound, the only
conclusion that it would establish is that implementing program P is
not sufficient for consciousness.  On the face of it, semantics is
a quite separate issue.

The Chinese Room argument only becomes an argument about semantics when
combined with the premise "Consciousness is a necessary prerequisite
for true semantics."  Searle believes this, most other philosophers do
not; on the face of it the two phenomena are independent.  In the 1980
paper, Searle doesn't even bother to explicitly state this premise, but
assumes it.  In the absence of convincing argument for the premise, all
arguments about the Chinese Room should be stated in terms of consciousness,
not semantics.  The "syntax/semantics" argument just confuses the issue.

--
Dave Chalmers     (dave@cogsci.indiana.edu)      
Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University.
"It is not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable"