Reply to Jacquette John R. Searle Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 49, No. 4. (Jun., 1989), pp. 701-708. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8205%28198906%2949%3A4%3C701%3ARTJ%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Y Philosophy and Phenomenological Research is currently published by International Phenomenological Society.
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Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Vol. XLIX, No. 4 , June 1989
Reply to Jacquette J O H N R. SEARLE
University of California, Berkeley
Jacquette makes numerous points about the Chinese Room Argument and about the problem of intentionality in general. I will not try to reply to all of them, but I will confine myself to those that seem to me most important.
I believe he has missed the point of the Chinese Room argument. Though the point is really very simple, it does sometimes tend to get lost in all of the interpretations, criticisms, and "intuitions" which are discussed in these matters. Here it is: programs are purely syntactically defined. The program consists of formal symbol manipulations. But these formal symbol manipulations by themselves have no semantic content. Any semantic interpretation has to be from outside the system of the symbol manipulation. This is a strict logical consequence of the syntactical character of the programs and the fact that syntax is not sufficient for semantics. But in this respect programs differ from human minds, which have mental states with intrinsic mental or semantic content. That is the argument. It is that simple. In the abstract of the original BBS article and in various other places, I set it out as a derivation from axioms, but it can equally be understood discursively, as I stated it above. The Chinese Room Argument reminds us of these facts by reminding us that the man in the Chinese room can be the hardware implementing the formal syntactical steps in any program at all, and yet the 'system' of hardware and software still does not have the appropriate semantic content which is supposed to be associated with those steps. This will be the case, for example, when he is a native monolingual English speaker going through the program for "understanding Chinese." Using obvious abbreviations, Strong A1 says: Necessarily (program implies mind).
My counter-argument says: It is not the case that (necessarily (program implies mind)). because It is possible that (program and not mind). Now, it seems to me that Jacquette misses the point of this argument. He thinks it is only about "macrolevel" programs and would not apply to "microlevel" programs. But the argument as stated applies to any programs at any level at all. He also says that "the key assumption (of the Chinese Room Argument is) that any adequate functionally isomorphic model of a native Chinese speaker must have a central locus of program execution or control that itself understands Chinese." But that is not a key assumption, indeed it is not an assumption at all. I gave several examples in the original text of systems which were "functionally isomorphic models of a native Chinese speaker" but which were made out of beer can systems or water pipes, etc., and they certainly do not need to have a Chinese understanding "central locus of program, execution or control." The only assumptions that I make are the ones that I stated above, viz.: programs are syntactical, syntax is not sufficient for semantics, and minds have semantics. He says: ." . . if there is no single locus of control in the micro-functionally isomorphic model of the native Chinese speaker, then it remains at least possible that the program itself and no single identifiable part of it would understand Chinese" (p. 609). But this, I believe, is just beside the point. It is, of course, "possible" that every program carries with it a complete understanding of Chinese. For example, for all I know, God might decide to endow every single program ever created with a complete understanding of Chinese. In any case, if it is not possible, I certainly did not try to demonstrate it. And you can have as many micro-functionally isomorphic models as you like, but as long as they are defined purely formally, and as long as the formal syntax is just that, a formal syntax, the program will not by itself be sufficient to guarantee the presence of the semantics. Somehow or other, Jacquette seems to think that I am arguing that no program system could ever have a semantics. But that is not my argument, and it never was. That interpretation is based on misunderstanding the scope of the modal operators. The argument, to repeat, is: the presence of the appropriate program at any level which satisfies the Turing test is not sufficient for nor constitutive of, it does not guarantee the presence of intentional content. He thinks that I am claiming: Program implies necessarily not mind.
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Whereas what I am in fact claiming is: It is not the case that (necessarily (program implies mind)). As far as I can see, he has not answered this point, indeed, he has not even addressed himself to it. What is going on here? I am not sure how he could have come by this misunderstanding, but my tentative diagnosis is this: in the original article I imagined a single man going through all the steps of the "Chinese understanding" computer program. Jacquette thinks he can evade this thought experiment simply by fiat.' He says we can simply imagine a microlevel program which no single man could execute. Fine. Let us imagine such a program. It still does not meet the point; the point is that the program is purely formal or syntactical. And once again, you can see that by extending the thought experiment. If the system has a program which no single man can execute, then let a whole bunch of monolingual English speaking men execute it. You still do not get any Chinese semantics. Just to summarize this point so that it is absolutely clear: He thinks that the fundamental issue in the Chinese Room Argument is about the appropriate level of the program, and he thinks that there is nothing in the argument that precludes the possibility that there might be a program level with no single locus of control. But that is not the issue. The issue is about the distinction between formal symbols and semantics, between the manipulation of syntactical elements and the meanings attaching to those syntactical elements. And that distinction applies at every level of program implementation. I am happy to keep stating this argument over and over again, because its points are brutally simple. As it does seem difficult to get across, I will state it again: I.
Programs are syntactical.
2.
Minds have semantics.
3.
Syntax by itself is neither sufficient for nor constitutive of semantics. Therefore,
4.
Programs by themselves are not minds.
' In this he apparently follows William G. Lycan, "The Functionalist Reply," The Behauioral and Brain Sciences
j
(1980):43 5
At no point does Jacquette address this argument.
I now turn to Jacquette's discussion of the "causal powers of the mind" and the problems of intentionality in general. It seems to me his main interest is in the issues of the ontology of intentionality. The basic points he makes here are as follows: first, he thinks my "arguments" for the claim that intentionality is a biological phenomenon are "flawed"; and second, he suggests in opposition to this that we should think of intentionality as an "abstract relation." The choice then that he presents us is between the "naturalistic" biological conception of intentionality and an "abstract" conception of intentionality. Third, in opposition to my view, he finds my analogies between the way intentionality relates to the brain and the way that, e.g., liquidity and solidity relate to molecular substructures wanting. I will try to answer all of these points in the following discussion. To begin, I believe there are some very deep misunderstandings, not only of my own views, but of the nature of intentionality itself that motivate much of his discussion. Since, he is not alone in having these misunderstandings, I think it is worth the effort to try to clarify the matter in some detail. Let us consider the alleged opposition between the claims that intentionality is a biological phenomenon and the claims that intentionality involves abstract relations, and let us try to state each of these views a little more precisely. I.
Intrinsic intentionality is a biological phenomenon, caused by brain processes and realized in the structure of the brain.
2.
Intentionality consists in a series of 'abstract relations' involving such abstract phenomena as propositional contents, reference, truth conditions, conditions of satisfaction generally, etc.
Mr. Jacquette objects to my holding the first of these, and urges that I should instead adopt the second. But in fact, I hold both of these propositions, and I have spent a fair amount of my time over the past few years attempting to explicate both. The crucial point to see is that they are not competing answers to the same question, they are non-competing answers to two quite different questions. The first is an answer to the question "How does the existence of intentional phenomena such as thirst, hunger, belief, desire, etc. relate to the rest of the world; i.e. how do they fit into our overall ontology?" The second is an answer to the question, "What is the logical structure of intentional representation; i.e. how does it work logically speaking?" There is no inconsistency between these
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two views, on the contrary, they are both part of one overall theory or conception of intentionality. Now, I believe that his deepest problem is that he, in common with many other philosophers, cannot see how both of these can be true together. Notice that on their face there is clearly no inconsistency between I. and 2 . It is like saying that paintings have both physical realizations i.e. they are oil on canvas, and abstract relations, i.e they represent such and such scenes. But I think that Jacquette would reject this analogy where "primitive" intentionality is concerned. After all, paintings get their intentionality from humans, and it is for human intentionality that he thinks we must choose between "abstract relations" and "naturalism." So let us try to probe a little deeper. Jacquette seems to think that I am attempting to produce some arguments for the claim that intentionality is a biological phenomenon. And he professes to find these arguments unconvincing. As far as I know, I have never actually tried to produce any arguments that intentionality is a biological phenomenon, I simply stated it as an obvious fact. I then tried to show some of its instances, and I tried to explore the reasons why people have denied this obvious fact. But I am not sure how one would go about arguing for anything quite so obvious. So, let me once again call attention to its obviousness. Consider some absolutely paradigm cases of intentionality, not the usual philosopher's examples, but real ground floor, real life cases of intentionality: having an intense thirst for a really cold glass of beer, feeling a sudden desire to throw up, having a visual experience of a man coming in the door on the opposite side of the room, feeling too hot because the room is too hot, having a strong sexual desire, feeling a surge of anger. Now, does anyone doubt that these are all biological phenomena as much as digestion is a biological phenomenon? Of course, we do not know the details of how they are caused by brain processes, but there is no real doubt that they are caused by brain processes. If we are talking about the ontology of intrinsic intentionality, then the discussion starts with the fact they are biological phenomena. That is not the conclusion of the argument, but the beginning. Why then is there so much resistance? In Jacquette's case, why all the heavy going about the Empress Josephine and the President of the United States? Why not just grant that, e.g. when I am in a paradigm state of intentionality such as thirst, my thirst is caused by neuron firings in the hypothalamus and is realized right there - in the brain. My own diagnosis of why people have failed to see this obvious fact is fairly complex, and it has grown in complexity over the years. But the basic component of the diagnosis is that many philosophers have still not
freed themselves from the clutches of Cartesian dualism. They still think of the mind as something formal or abstract and not part of the real messy world of biological phenomena going on in our brain. Now, once you get over this Cartesianism, once you abandon dualism, and once you see the biological character of intentionality, then there is no question of naturalizing intentionality; it is already completely naturalized, it is as natural as digestion. It is just something that happens to us in virtue of our biological constitution. The resistance to these obvious facts derives from the failure to see that something can both have the irreducible logical properties of intentional phenomena and still at the same time be a natural biological phenomenon. Many philosophers ranging from Descartes to his contemporary heirs in Artificial Intelligence and functionalism generally think that the mind, because of its "abstract" properties, could not be a natural biological phenomenon. Jacquette is one of these heirs, and it is revealing that he quotes the objections of Sir John Eccles against me (p. 11); because, of course, Eccles is a convinced dualist. He believes that God attaches the Soul to the fetus at the age of about three weeks. To repeat: I do not try to demonstrate that intentionality is a biological phenomenon, I just assert it as an obvious fact which is based on everything we know about how the world works; and anybody who fails to see its obviousness, just has to go through the absolutely standard examples of intentionality - feeling thirsty, seeing an object on the far side of the room, feeling a strong emotion, wanting to throw up, etc. Mr. Jacquette purports to find various "flaws" in my argument for the biological character of intentionality, but since there is no such "argument" it is hard to understand his characterization of the "flaws." He does indeed have arguments against my various analogies as to how mental phenomena could at the same time be both caused by brain phenomena and realized in the structure of brains. He objects that mental phenomena could not be analogous to solidity and liquidity, because, "if intentional mental phenomena are irreducible then they cannot be causally naturalized by analogy with wetness, elasticity, solidity, or puncture resistence, since these higher-level properties are arguably reducible to and eliminable in favor of micro-structure physical state descriptions." In this passage it seems to me he is confusing causal reduction with eliminative reduction. Of course, in so far as mental phenomena are entirely causally explicable in terms of lower-level neuro-biological phenomena then they are in that sense causally reducible to the lower-level phenomena. The causes are sufficient to produce the effects. But there is no eliminative or ontological reduction in this, because the higher-level phenomena still
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exist. Now, similarly with, for example, solidity. Solidity is entirely explicable causally in terms of the vibratory movements of the molecules in lattice structures. But the higher-level phenomena still exist. Thus, for example, because the table in front of me is solid, it is able to support the books on it. The table is not penetrated by the books. Solidity is a feature at the level of the table, not at the level of individual molecules. He objects that the only irreducible properties are "phenomenological"; but that, I believe, involves a mistake about the nature of scientific reduction. Causal reductions do not in general eliminate higher-level features. Even if we all died and there were no more phenomenological properties in the world, all the same books will not penetrate tables. When Jacquette says that we ought to think of intentionality as an "abstract relation," we need to be very careful to distinguish whether or not his claim is about the ontological status of intentional phenomena or whether or not it is about the logical properties of intentional phenomena. If it is a question about the ontological status, then it seems to me, as a matter of fact, it is just false. There is nothing "abstract" about my desire to throw up. Of course, you cannot weigh it, or sit on it. It is not a physical object, but all the same it is a pretty concrete empirical phenomenon in the real world. He cites Brentano and Husserl as also holding the abstract notion of intentionality. I have not read either of these authors on this issue, and so I cannot comment on their conceptions, but if they deny that intentionality is biological then, I believe, they must be mistaken. The reason, however, that intentionality is so philosophically interesting is that these biological phenomena have logical properties. They are capable of representing objects and states of affairs in the world. It is here that we can agree to his claim that intentionality is "abstract." But the really deep mistake, and it is one of the most profound mistakes of the past three hundred years in Western philosophy, is the assumption that anything that has these abstract properties, that is capable of standing in representing relations, cannot be part of the ordinary 'physical' world we all live in. We know this assumption is mistaken, because we know that the brain is part of the ordinary 'physical' world and we know that is does stand in intentional relations. The assumption is one of the many forms that dualism takes, and Mr. Jacquette has yet to free himself from it. Jacquette says that I "need to preserve intentionality as an irreducible distinguishing feature of the mental." But I have no such need and, indeed, no such view. I do not think that intentionality is a "distinguishing feature of the mental," because it seems to me quite possible that there may be organisms that have mental phenomena in the form of conscious states, but have no intentionality. I do not know whether this is the case, but I
certainly have no philosophical arguments against it. If we are talking about the "distinguishing features of the mental," I would think consciousness is a more plausible candidate than intentionality.
