Quote #24
In many cases it is a matter for decision and not a simple matter of fact whether x understands y; and so on.
More from John Searle
- I will argue that in the literal sense the programmed computer understands what the car and the adding machine understand, namely, exactly …
- My car and my adding machine understand nothing: they are not in that line of business.
- I want to block some common misunderstandings about 'understanding': In many of these discussions one finds a lot of fancy footwork about t…
- Our tools are extensions of our purposes, and so we find it natural to make metaphorical attributions of intentionality to them; but I take…
- Just acquiring this amount of 'education' will not, by itself, make you an educated person, even less will it give you what Oakeshott calls…
- The sense in which an automatic door 'understands instructions' from its photoelectric cell is not at all the sense in which I understand E…
- Finally, and perhaps most importantly, you need to acquire the skills of writing and speaking that make for candor, rigor, and clarity. You…
- There are clear cases in which 'understanding' literally applies and clear cases in which it does not apply; and these two sorts of cases a…