ISSN:
1572-8641
Source:
Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
Topics:
Computer Science
,
Philosophy
Notes:
Conclusion What the preceding arguments show — I take it — is that none of the four traditional marks of the mental considered provide a supportable basis for denying that Cal calculates in the same sense as you or I; i.e., I have sought to show that our initial syllogism does not commit the fallacy of four terms by equivocating on ‘calculates’, its middle. I will conclude by remarking why the argument — at least as I intend it, and on its least tendentious reading — doesn't equivocate on its major, ‘thinks’, either. Ordinarily ‘think’ is a generic term for any of several different mental activities or states. According to Descartes, a thing that thinks is “a thing which doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions” (1642: 19). Similarly, my dictionary (Webster's New Collegiate), under ‘think’, mentions conceive, judge, consider, surmise, expect, determine, resolve, reason, intend, purpose, reflect, infer, opine, and decide. In this ordinary generic sense of the term, I take it, it's undeniable that calculating is thinking, and — if my arguments are sound — that my pocket calculator calculates and consequently thinks. Perhaps some special sense of ‘thinking’ can be made out for which calculating is not sufficient — perhaps some sense in which it's not sufficient to doubtor understandor will, etc., but in which it's necessary to (be able to) doubtand understandand will, etc. (as Descartes surely intended). Perhaps there is some sense in which ‘thinking’ requires such unity, or universality of mental capacity — or alternatively some other traditional (or perhaps some non-traditional) mark(s) of the mental. At any rate — whether or not such a sense of ‘thought’ can be made out — I have only claimed that Cal thinks in the ordinary generic sense of being a subject of at least one kind of contentful or mental state, not that he is a unified, or conscious, or autonomous self or soul or thinker in some special proprietary philosophical sense. I leave it to the opponent of AI to clarify what this sense is and to make out the case, if it can be made, against Cal's thinking inthis sense.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00974301
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