ABSTRACT
Hacking is easier. Cf. also S.Evnine, Donald Davidson, Polity/ Blackwell, 1991, chapter 6.)
. Argument offered by Searle against the claim he attributes to supporters of what he calls ‘Strong AI’ (artificial intelligence), that to instantiate a computer program is enough to constitute intentionality, i.e. ‘that feature of certain mental states by which they are directed at or about objects and states of affairs in the world’ (cf. INTENSIONALITY AND INTENTIONALITY). Searle argues that something could always instantiate a program, and thereby simulate understanding, without duplicating it, and without itself actually understanding. To illustrate this he imagines that, knowing no Chinese, he is locked in a room and presented with Chinese characters together with rules for correlating the characters and producing some in response to others. These rules might be such that the characters he produced could serve as meaningful answers to questions represented by the characters presented to him. Yet however far this process was elaborated, Searle claims, he would not be understanding Chinese. What the argument in fact shows has been much disputed. *T.Crane, The Mechanical Mind: an Introduction to Minds, Machines and Mental
Representation, Penguin, 1995, chapter 3. (Contains elementary introduction.) J.R.Searle, ‘Minds, brains and programs’, The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol. 3,
1980, pp. 413-57. (Includes discussions and Searle’s reply. For quotation see p. 424 n. 3.)
. 1916-. Born in Maryland, he has worked mainly at Brown University, Rhode Island. His work covers the central areas of philosophy, and is distinguished by an attempt to bring the insights of the Austrian phenomenologists, especially Brentano and Meinong, to bear on modern analytical philosophy, whose interests and methods he largely adheres to; he has been instrumental, for instance, in focusing our attention on intentionality (see INTENSIONALITY AND INTENTIONALITY). His publications include Perceiving, 1957; Theory of Knowledge, 1966 (substantially revised in 1977 and again in 1989); Person and Object, 1976; The First Person, 1981; Brentano and Meinong Studies, 1982; Brentano and Intrinsic Value, 1986; On Metaphysics, 1989.
