Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!hp4nl!botter!star.cs.vu.nl!hansw From: hansw@cs.vu.nl (Hans Weigand) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Question on Chinese Room Argument Summary: two senses of understanding? Keywords: understanding Message-ID: <2108@hansw.cs.vu.nl> Date: 1 Mar 89 09:18:19 GMT References: <3312@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> Reply-To: hansw@cs.vu.nl (Weigand Hans) Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam Lines: 24 In article harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Stevan Harnad) wrote: >lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) of University of Hawaii wrote: > >" No, there aren't "two senses of "understand," a subjective and an >" objective one," [otherwise we couldn't say] 'He understands, and I do too' > >As I've suggested already, this is simply not a linguistic matter. ... >[there] is both an objective and a subjective sense of understanding. > Can't we reconcile these two standpoints by saying that "understanding" has only one "sense" (linguistic meaning), but that this sense has two aspects (facets), objective and subjective? Cognitive scientists and philosphers must distinguish between objective and subjective aspects of intentional attitudes, but they must also be careful not to abolutize these aspects, because this easily leads to abstractions prone to paradoxes. For the rest, I agree with Stevan. Hans Weigand, Dept of Mathematics and Computer Science Free University, Amsterdam