Sorities, Properties and The Extensional Stance
David Longley
I thought it might help if I illustrated some of my recent claims
about how some folk in this group have come (albeit without
appropriate acknowledgement) to slowly if unclearly, appreciate
some of the points that I have been pressing home over the past
18 months. The significance of what I have been trying to get
folk here to appreciate is far more important than the petty
squabbling might lead some to believe.
I had a long exchange with Sloman over these issues this time
last year, and it was clear there, as it is still clear with
Balter and Rickert, that the extent to which intension permeates
"folk psychology" and the extent to which this characterises the
way in which cognitivists of all persuasion implicitly operate,
just is not understood.
What these folk have to learn is to read what Bruner said (and
inaugurated) not as a positive scientific resolution, but as an
unintended ironic remark on the nature of heuristic based folk-
psychology:
'The most characteristic thing about mental life, over
and beyond the fact that one apprehends the events of
the world around one, is that one constantly goes beyond
the information given'.
J Bruner (1957)
Going Beyond The Information Given
(in H Gulber and others (eds)
Contemporary Approaches to Cognition)
Looking back over the past month, one can find plenty to
substantiate my remark that the point is slowly filtering
through, but that those to whom it is filtering through to, just
don't have enough familiarity with the relevant research
literature in empirical psychology to appreciate what I have
outlined in "Fragments of Behaviour: The Extensional Stance".
The following folk only have a context specific, (fragmentary)
understanding of what they are saying. Reading the following in
conjunction with many of their other remarks here on the net, one
can't help but remark on the irony.
'Of course, what we have here is our old friend, the intensional;
the extensions of "rich" and "small" are undetermined.
And sorites arguments are just the sort of operations that cannot
be applied in intensional contexts.'
J. Balter
'I don't think "informal vs. formal" or "natural vs. artificial"
quite get at the problem, as opposed to "intensional vs. extensional."'
N. Rickert
As I have oft repeated:
'..the meaning of words are abstractions from the truth
conditions of sentences that contain them.'
W.V.O. Quine (1981)
The Five Milestones of Empiricism: Theories and Things p.69
<snip>
It is this *abstraction* from concrete examples which causes the
trouble. Like TRUTH, our concept of INTENtION is, I suspect,
problematic because it is an abstraction from conditions which
otherwise have an entirely behavioural/physical explication. Like
other intenSional notions, it comes about because we reify a
property, ie we take a set of relations and treat it as a zero
order predicate such as TRUTH, INTENtION... etc.
Terms like "small" and "rich" are but zero order abstractions of
*relations* ("smaller than", "richer than" - and as I have
pointed out elsewhere (with the help of Quine, 'properties' are
indeed intensional, and as such prone to lead to all sorts of
metaphysical abuse, or, in the hands of those above, just
*abuse*, since they are, despite their attempts to make out to
the contrary, still lost in the quagmire of "folk-psychology" and
all of its attributive idioms.
In my view, it was the new logic of Frege which gave the logical
empiricists their greatest tool in their fight against
metaphysics:
'The new logic is distinguished from the old not only by the
form in which it is presented but chiefly also by the
increase of its range....The only form of statements
(sentences) in the old logic was the predicative form:
"Socrates is a man," "All (or some) Greeks are men." A
predicate-concept or property is attributed to a subject-
concept. Leibniz had already put forward the demand that
logic should consider sentences of relational form. In a
relational sentence such as, for example, "a is greater than
b," a relation is attributed to two or more objects, (or, as
it might be put, to several subject-concepts). Liebniz's idea
of a theory of relations has been worked out in the new
logic. The old logic conceived relational sentences as
sentences of predicative form. However, many inferences
involving relational sentences thereby become impossible. To
be sure, one can interpret the sentence "a is greater than b"
in such a way that the predicate "greater than b" is
attributed to the subject a. But the predicate then becomes a
unity; one cannot extract b by any rule of inference.
Consequently, the sentence "b is smaller than a" cannot be
inferred from this sentence. In the new logic, this inference
takes place in the following way: The relation "smaller than"
is defined as the "converse" of the relation "greater than."
The inference in question then rests on the universal
proposition: If a relation holds between x and y, its
converse holds between y and x. A further example of a
statement that cannot be proved in the old logic: "Wherever
there is a victor someone is vanquished." In the new logic,
this follows from the logical proposition: If a relation has
a referent, it also has a relatum. Relational statements are
especially indispensable for the mathematical sciences. Let
us consider as an example the geometrical concept of the
three-place relation "between" (on an open straight line).
The geometrical axioms "If a lies between b and c, b does not
lie between c and a" can be expressed only in the new logic.
According to the predicative view, in the first case we would
have the predicates "lying between b and c" and "lying
between c and a". If these are left unanalyzed, there is no
way of showing how the first is transformed into the second.
If one takes the objects b and c out of the predicate, the
statement "a lies between b and c" no longer serves to
characterise only one object, but three. It is therefore a
three-place relational statement....
Restriction to predicate-sentences has had disastrous effects
on subjects outside logic. Perhaps Russell is right when he
made this logical failing responsible for certain
metaphysical errors.....Above all, we may well assume that
this logical error is responsible for the concept of absolute
space. Because the fundamental form of a proposition had to
be predicative, it could only consist in the specification of
the position of a body. Since Leibniz had recognized the
possibility of relational sentences, he was able to arrive at
a correct conception of space: the elementary fact is not
position of a body but its positional relations relative to
other bodies. He upheld the view on epistemological grounds:
there is no way of determining the absolute position of a
body, but only its positional relations. His campaign in
favor of the relativistic view of space, as against the
absolutistic views of the followers of Newton, had as little
success as his program for logic.
Only after two hundred years were his ideas on both subjects
taken up and carried through: in logic with the theory of
relations (De Morgan 1858; Pierce 1870), in physics with the
theory of relativity (anticipatory ideas in Mach 1883;
Einstein 1905).'
R. Carnap
The Old and the New Logic (1930)
In A.J. Ayer (ed) Logical Positivism (1959)
To fail to understand this point is to fail to understand
everything that was effective in the logical empiricist movement
from Russell onwards, & for what it's worth, all that I have
attempted to say in "Fragments".
http://www.uni-hamburg.de/~kriminol/TS/tskr.htm
--
David Longley
Neil Rickert
>What these folk have to learn is to read what Bruner said (and
>inaugurated) not as a positive scientific resolution, but as an
>unintended ironic remark on the nature of heuristic based folk-
>psychology:
> 'The most characteristic thing about mental life, over
> and beyond the fact that one apprehends the events of
> the world around one, is that one constantly goes beyond
> the information given'.
Since no information is given, there are only two alternatives -
either go beyond the information given, or forever remain silent. If
Longley would practice what he preaches, and do the latter, he would
be doing us all a favor.
>The following folk only have a context specific, (fragmentary)
>understanding of what they are saying. Reading the following in
>conjunction with many of their other remarks here on the net, one
>can't help but remark on the irony.
> 'I don't think "informal vs. formal" or "natural vs. artificial"
> quite get at the problem, as opposed to "intensional vs. extensional."'
> N. Rickert
You have certainly gone way beyond the information given. That quote,
which you apparently attribute to me, was actually made by Balter in
response to something I had posted.
So what is the point of a mis-attribution presented completely out
of context?
CDJ
On Sat, 14 Dec 1996, David Longley wrote:
> In my view, it was the new logic of Frege which gave the logical
> empiricists their greatest tool in their fight against
> metaphysics:
If, among other things, you understood (by today's standards) logic as
well as Carnap or Quine, or even as well as Russell, or even as well as
Frege, I would be more inclined to take your thoughts on the role of
logic more seriously.
CDJ
Jim Balter
In article <850583...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>I thought it might help if I illustrated some of my recent claims
>about how some folk in this group have come (albeit without
>appropriate acknowledgement) to slowly if unclearly, appreciate
>some of the points that I have been pressing home over the past
>18 months. The significance of what I have been trying to get
>folk here to appreciate is far more important than the petty
>squabbling might lead some to believe.
> 'Of course, what we have here is our old friend, the intensional;
> the extensions of "rich" and "small" are undetermined.
>
> And sorites arguments are just the sort of operations that cannot
> be applied in intensional contexts.'
>
> J. Balter
At best, Longley's argument is post hoc ergo propter hoc.
However, since this was my position before I ever heard of David Longley,
he is just spouting nonsense.
Longley's is supporting his notion of fragmentation here with no more than
"people agree with some of what I say". By such impoverished reasoning, he
does his own thesis an injustice.
--
<J Q B>
Jim Balter
>*relations* ("smaller than", "richer than" - and as I have
>pointed out elsewhere (with the help of Quine, 'properties' are
>indeed intensional, and as such prone to lead to all sorts of
>metaphysical abuse, or, in the hands of those above, just
>*abuse*, since they are, despite their attempts to make out to
>the contrary, still lost in the quagmire of "folk-psychology" and
>all of its attributive idioms.
Since, as Longley has frequently admitted, he is not *distinguished* from me
in being "still lost in the quagmire of 'folk-psychology' and all of its
attributive idioms", his "since" simply doesn't work. Yet he repeatedly uses
the fact that I call him a hypocrite or refer to what he thinks, etc., as
evidence that I am lost in this quagmire, and *thus* evidence that I hold some
position or another or am confused about some point or another or fail to
understand something or another or haven't read something or another. All of
these are "fragmentary", "intensional" "folk-psychological"; but what more can
we expect, since he is using frail human thinking, and if he is right that
*everyone* has trouble with "some" vs. "all". But just because his logic is
shoddy and suffers from all the failures he rails against, that doesn't mean
that everyone's logic is so shoddy. What it does mean, though, is that any
*claim* of his, and any *judgement* of his as to what is worth citing or what
conclusions should be drawn from those citations or what these citations
"show" is highly suspect.
>In my view, it was the new logic of Frege which gave the logical
But Longley claims that *views* don't matter. Of course, that's his view.
--
<J Q B>
David Longley
> In <850583...@longley.demon.co.uk> Da...@longley.demon.co.uk (David Longley)
> writes:
>
> >What these folk have to learn is to read what Bruner said (and
> >inaugurated) not as a positive scientific resolution, but as an
> >unintended ironic remark on the nature of heuristic based folk-
> >psychology:
>
> > 'The most characteristic thing about mental life, over
> > and beyond the fact that one apprehends the events of
> > the world around one, is that one constantly goes beyond
> > the information given'.
>
> Since no information is given, there are only two alternatives -
> either go beyond the information given, or forever remain silent. If
> Longley would practice what he preaches, and do the latter, he would
> be doing us all a favor.
>
Why do you consider yourself spokesman fo rthe rest of the
readers of comp.ai.philosophy?
> >The following folk only have a context specific, (fragmentary)
> >understanding of what they are saying. Reading the following in
> >conjunction with many of their other remarks here on the net, one
> >can't help but remark on the irony.
>
> > 'I don't think "informal vs. formal" or "natural vs. artificial"
> > quite get at the problem, as opposed to "intensional vs. extensional."'
>
> > N. Rickert
>
> You have certainly gone way beyond the information given. That quote,
> which you apparently attribute to me, was actually made by Balter in
> response to something I had posted.
>
> So what is the point of a mis-attribution presented completely out
> of context?
>
Yes, it was a misattribution, but only technically so.
What we have here is more equivocation and sophistry - given the
following, it the misattribution is clearly only a technicality,
but one you have, as usual, exploited for purely rhetorical
purposes.
My point has been that behaviour is context specific, folk'
beliefs are context and content specific. Folk hold contradictory
(fragmented) beliefs as a consequence. What I'm doing here (as
elsewhere) is giving you an illustration of the overall
incoherence of your own position.
The trouble is, you won't understand this....
>From: ric...@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
>Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
>Subject: Re: Analyticity
>Date: 19 Nov 1996 18:11:53 -0600
>Organization: Northern Illinois University
>Lines: 28
>Message-ID: <56tic9$j...@ux.cs.niu.edu>
>References: <56smb4$f...@ux.cs.niu.edu> <32921B...@netcom.com>
>NNTP-Posting-Host: ux.cs.niu.edu
>
>In <32921B...@netcom.com> Jim Balter <j...@netcom.com> writes:
>>Neil Rickert wrote:
>
>>> One of my basic principles is that logic can only be applied in a
>>> formal system. It is not reliably applicable to natural language
>>> predicates.
>
>>It is useful to remember what a logical predicate *is*: it is a
>dichotomy, a function which evaluates to "true" or "false" for each
>member of its domain.
>
>Right. Formal systems have such predicates. Most natural language
>predicates are not of that form -- there are usually borderline cases
>for which there is no clear way of determining whether "true" or
>"false" should be the value.
>
>>Of course, what we have here is our old friend, the intensional;
>>the extensions of "rich" and "small" are undetermined.
>
>As are the extensions of most natural language expressions.
>
>>I don't think "informal vs. formal" or "natural vs. artificial"
>>quite get at the problem, as opposed to "intensional vs. extensional."
>
>I think you are making a distinction for which there is no
>difference. Natural languages are informal and intensional, whereas
>artificial languages are usually formal and extensional.
I've comes to expect your obfuscatory and generally rhetorical
follow-ups. I'm sure others, who have followed the themes
outlined in "Fragments" will see through these rather vain and
intensional tactics of yours. They are, after all, rather human..
>--
>David Longley
David Longley
> In article <850583...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
> David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >Terms like "small" and "rich" are but zero order abstractions of
> >*relations* ("smaller than", "richer than" - and as I have
> >pointed out elsewhere (with the help of Quine, 'properties' are
> >indeed intensional, and as such prone to lead to all sorts of
> >metaphysical abuse, or, in the hands of those above, just
> >*abuse*, since they are, despite their attempts to make out to
> >the contrary, still lost in the quagmire of "folk-psychology" and
> >all of its attributive idioms.
>
> Since, as Longley has frequently admitted, he is not *distinguished* from me
> in being "still lost in the quagmire of 'folk-psychology' and all of its
> attributive idioms", his "since" simply doesn't work. Yet he repeatedly uses
> the fact that I call him a hypocrite or refer to what he
> thinks.....
and so on and on and on....
It's hardly *my* stance, it's a professional, scientific stance,
and I have documented the evidence in support of it. Sniping at
little things I have posted here out of context is just silly.
The whole point of referencing material and talking extolling the
merits of extensionality is that truth is independent of what one
'believes. To that extent, it really does not matter whether I or
*you* are right or wrong, what does matter is whether the thesis
presented has the status expected of scientific theses.
I readily acknowledge that I am as prone as anyone else to
biases, distortions, and logical weakness of intensionality, when
I am not working professionally. I'm NOT making a statement of
personal, but professional behaviour.
What I *have* endeavoured to do is to sketch some important lines
of research which I think demand special professional investment
both in academia and in the applied fields.
--
David Longley
David Longley
In article <Pine.GSO.3.95L.96121...@unixs4.cis.pitt.edu>
cdjo...@pitt.edu "CDJ" writes:
>
>
> On Sat, 14 Dec 1996, David Longley wrote:
>
> > In my view, it was the new logic of Frege which gave the logical
> > empiricists their greatest tool in their fight against
> > metaphysics:
>
> If, among other things, you understood (by today's standards) logic as
> well as Carnap or Quine, or even as well as Russell, or even as well as
> Frege, I would be more inclined to take your thoughts on the role of
> logic more seriously.
>
> CDJ
>
OK..forget about what you think *I* understand. Consider Quine
instead. Perhaps then you'll start to appreciate the point of
what I am saying a little better.
--
David Longley
David Longley
> In article <850583...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
> David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >Terms like "small" and "rich" are but zero order abstractions of
> >*relations* ("smaller than", "richer than" - and as I have
> >pointed out elsewhere (with the help of Quine, 'properties' are
> >indeed intensional, and as such prone to lead to all sorts of
> >metaphysical abuse, or, in the hands of those above, just
> >*abuse*, since they are, despite their attempts to make out to
> >the contrary, still lost in the quagmire of "folk-psychology" and
> >all of its attributive idioms.
>
> Since, as Longley has frequently admitted, he is not *distinguished* from me
> in being "still lost in the quagmire of 'folk-psychology' and all of its
> attributive idioms", his "since" simply doesn't work. Yet he repeatedly uses
> the fact that I call him a hypocrite or refer to what he thinks, etc., as
> evidence that I am lost in this quagmire, and *thus* evidence that I hold some
> position or another or am confused about some point or another or fail to
> understand something or another or haven't read something or another. All of
> these are "fragmentary", "intensional" "folk-psychological"; but what more can
> we expect, since he is using frail human thinking, and if he is right that
> *everyone* has trouble with "some" vs. "all". But just because his logic is
> shoddy and suffers from all the failures he rails against, that doesn't mean
> that everyone's logic is so shoddy. What it does mean, though, is that any
> *claim* of his, and any *judgement* of his as to what is worth citing or what
> conclusions should be drawn from those citations or what these citations
> "show" is highly suspect.
>
> >In my view, it was the new logic of Frege which gave the logical
>
> But Longley claims that *views* don't matter. Of course, that's his view.
>
When you *stop* such petty quibbling *and* realise how silly it
is to go around making such remarks and calling other folk
"morons" etc., THEN I'll accept that you have adopted the
extensional stance. However, on the basis of a lot (not all I'll
credit) of your behaviour here in this newsgroup, you just
haven't grasped it at all.
--
David Longley
Neil Rickert
>OK..forget about what you think *I* understand.
I am saving that quote. I will repeat it to you, the next time you
question what you think I understand.
Neil Rickert
>> Since, as Longley has frequently admitted, he is not *distinguished* from me
>> in being "still lost in the quagmire of 'folk-psychology' and all of its
>> attributive idioms", his "since" simply doesn't work. Yet he repeatedly uses
>> the fact that I call him a hypocrite or refer to what he
>> thinks.....
>and so on and on and on....
>It's hardly *my* stance, it's a professional, scientific stance,
>and I have documented the evidence in support of it.
What you have documented, are the philosophical arguments in favor of
this stance, and you have presumed to apply those arguments outside
their intended context.
> Sniping at
>little things I have posted here out of context is just silly.
>The whole point of referencing material and talking extolling the
>merits of extensionality is that truth is independent of what one
>'believes.
That is clearly false. You have just complained that Balter took
some of what you wrote out of context. To the extent that what one
believes contributes to the context in which truth is assessed, truth
is not independent of what one believes.
>I readily acknowledge that I am as prone as anyone else to
>biases, distortions, and logical weakness of intensionality, when
>I am not working professionally. I'm NOT making a statement of
>personal, but professional behaviour.
Since most participants in this group do not belong to your
profession, it would seem that your assertions about professional
behavior are misplaced.
CDJ
In article <850677...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
Da...@longley.demon.co.uk (David Longley) wrote:
Anyone ever mentally compared Longley with a religous fanatic?
>It's hardly *my* stance, it's a professional, scientific stance,
>and I have documented the evidence in support of it. Sniping at
>little things I have posted here out of context is just silly.
They like to remind nonbelievers that they're not alone in the world.
>The whole point of referencing material and talking extolling the
>merits of extensionality is that truth is independent of what one
>'believes. To that extent, it really does not matter whether I or
>*you* are right or wrong, what does matter is whether the thesis
>presented has the status expected of scientific theses.
They like to refer to written material as though that would settle the
question (as if it were, so to speak _Gospel_).
>I readily acknowledge that I am as prone as anyone else to
>biases, distortions, and logical weakness of intensionality, when
>I am not working professionally. I'm NOT making a statement of
>personal, but professional behaviour.
Next to most of all: They freely acknowledge their sinful nature, while still
maintaining their superiority over the nonbeliever.
And most of: Just about all of their insanity can be accounted for by
reference to something very specific. In Longley's case, it is a fundamental
misunderstanding of the intensional context phenomenon provided by
propositional attitudes.
CDJ
CDJ
>OK..forget about what you think *I* understand.
Done. (A remarkably easy task.)
>Consider Quine
>instead.
Fine.
>Perhaps then you'll start to appreciate the point of
>what I am saying a little better.
At least to the extent that you represent Quine without embellishment.
But Quine is committed to the Myth of the Given (have you read either Sellars
or McDowell?), so that his positive thoughts cannot be taken all that
seriously. Not to mention his radical misunderstanding of the intensional
context phenomenon.
CDJ
Jim Balter
In article <850677...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <jqbE2F...@netcom.com> j...@netcom.com "Jim Balter" writes:
>
>> >*relations* ("smaller than", "richer than" - and as I have
>> >pointed out elsewhere (with the help of Quine, 'properties' are
>> >indeed intensional, and as such prone to lead to all sorts of
>> >metaphysical abuse, or, in the hands of those above, just
>> >*abuse*, since they are, despite their attempts to make out to
>> >the contrary, still lost in the quagmire of "folk-psychology" and
>> >all of its attributive idioms.
>>
>> in being "still lost in the quagmire of 'folk-psychology' and all of its
>> attributive idioms", his "since" simply doesn't work. Yet he repeatedly uses
>> the fact that I call him a hypocrite or refer to what he
>> thinks.....
>
>and so on and on and on....
>
The "since" that I referred to is an example of Longley's illogic, not
something professional or scientific.
>and I have documented the evidence in support of it.
Longley seems incapable of distinguishing between evidence in support of P and
evidence in support of P->Q.
>Sniping at
>little things I have posted here out of context is just silly.
They weren't out of context, and even if they were it wouldn't follow that it
was silly.
>The whole point of referencing material and talking extolling the
>merits of extensionality is that truth is independent of what one
>'believes.
But what one believes to be the truth is not. An epistemological problem that
Longley doesn't seem to even comprehend, let alone address.
>To that extent, it really does not matter whether I or
>*you* are right or wrong, what does matter is whether the thesis
>presented has the status expected of scientific theses.
And what sort of status is that?
>I readily acknowledge that I am as prone as anyone else to
>biases, distortions, and logical weakness of intensionality, when
>I am not working professionally. I'm NOT making a statement of
>personal, but professional behaviour.
Ah yes, Longley becomes free of all these when paid to do so. I wonder how
much he gets for posting his professional something-beyond-opinions to c.a.p.
>What I *have* endeavoured to do is to sketch some important lines
>of research which I think demand special professional investment
>both in academia and in the applied fields.
But that's not all you have done.
--
<J Q B>
Jim Balter
In article <850679...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> >In my view, it was the new logic of Frege which gave the logical
>>
>>
>
>When you *stop* such petty quibbling *and* realise how silly it
The hypocrite Longley considers all criticism of his hypocritical
inconsistencies to be petty quibbling. OTOH, *His* petty comments about
other people's use of intensional idioms are to be taken as having great
significance.
>is to go around making such remarks and calling other folk
>"morons" etc.,
"moron" is Hubey's word.
>THEN I'll accept that you have adopted the
>extensional stance.
One of the key points of Dennett's stances is that they can be applied
independently, depending upon what aspects one is focused on. They are not
ideologies to be committed to.
>However, on the basis of a lot (not all I'll
>credit) of your behaviour here in this newsgroup, you just
>haven't grasped it at all.
Right; if I call Longley an idiot, that proves that I can't do arithmetic. Or
something.
--
<J Q B>
Jim Balter
In article <850677...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <Pine.GSO.3.95L.96121...@unixs4.cis.pitt.edu>
> cdjo...@pitt.edu "CDJ" writes:
>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, 14 Dec 1996, David Longley wrote:
>>
>> > empiricists their greatest tool in their fight against
>> > metaphysics:
>>
>> well as Carnap or Quine, or even as well as Russell, or even as well as
>> Frege, I would be more inclined to take your thoughts on the role of
>> logic more seriously.
>>
>> CDJ
>>
>instead. Perhaps then you'll start to appreciate the point of
If you don't understand it, then what you are saying is likely to be *wrong*,
eh? You say the truth is independent of what we believe, and yet seem quite
unwilling to entertain the possibility that the truth contradicts what you
believe.
--
<J Q B>
David Longley
In article <Pine.GSO.3.95L.96121...@unixs4.cis.pitt.edu>
cdjo...@pitt.edu "CDJ" writes:
>
>
> On Sat, 14 Dec 1996, David Longley wrote:
>
> > empiricists their greatest tool in their fight against
> > metaphysics:
>
> well as Carnap or Quine, or even as well as Russell, or even as well as
> Frege, I would be more inclined to take your thoughts on the role of
> logic more seriously.
>
> CDJ
>
to the point that the above did. What I *have* done is develop
skills in rDBMS design, 4GL analysis and statistics so I can both
collect and analyse the values of variables. All I can offer in
support of that is "A System Specification for PROfiling
BEhaviour", which "Fragments" is an extract from.
What I was looking for here was support from folk with
complementary skills, not a trial by fire....
--
David Longley
Jim Balter
In article <850704...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>What I was looking for here was support from folk with
>complementary skills, not a trial by fire....
But since you didn't find it, you decided to make everyone pay for it for 18
months or more. For how many years will you continue trying to shove this
stuff down people's throats?
--
<J Q B>
David Longley
In article <5925pa$e...@usenet.srv.cis.pitt.edu> cdjo...@pitt.edu "CDJ" writes:
>
> And most of: Just about all of their insanity can be accounted for by
> reference to something very specific. In Longley's case, it is a fundamental
> misunderstanding of the intensional context phenomenon provided by
> propositional attitudes.
>
And what is this "fundamental misunderstanding" ?
--
David Longley
David Longley
> In article <850677...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
> Da...@longley.demon.co.uk (David Longley) wrote:
>
> >OK..forget about what you think *I* understand.
>
> Done. (A remarkably easy task.)
>
> >Consider Quine
> >instead.
>
> Fine.
>
> >Perhaps then you'll start to appreciate the point of
> >what I am saying a little better.
>
> At least to the extent that you represent Quine without embellishment.
>
> But Quine is committed to the Myth of the Given (have you read either Sellars
> or McDowell?), so that his positive thoughts cannot be taken all that
> seriously. Not to mention his radical misunderstanding of the intensional
> context phenomenon.
>
> CDJ
>
Oh.. I see, Quine misunderstands it too.....
'In general the underlying methodology of the idioms of
propositional attitude contrasts strikingly with the
spirit of objective science at its most representative.
For consider again quotation, direct and indirect. When
we quote a man's utterance directly we report it almost
as we might a bird call. However significant the
utterance, direct quotation merely reports the physical
incident and leaves any implications to us. On the other
hand in indirect quotation we project ourselves into
what, from his remarks and other indications, we imagine
the speaker's state of mind to have been, and then we
say what, in our language, is natural and relevant for
us in the state thus feigned. An indirect quotation we
can usually expect to rate only as better or worse, more
or less faithful, and we cannot even hope for a strict
standard of more and less; what is involve d is
evaluation, relative to special purposes, of an
essentially dramatic act. Correspondingly for the other
propositional attitudes, for all of them can be thought
of as involving something like quotation of one's own
imagined verbal response to an imagined situation.
-
Casting our real selves thus in unreal roles, we do not
generally know how much reality to hold constant.
Quandaries arise. But despite them we find ourselves
attributing beliefs, wishes and strivings even to
creatures lacking the power of speech, such is our
dramatic virtuosity. We project ourselves even into what
from his behavior we imagine a mouse's state to have
been, and dramatize it as a belief, wish, or striving,
verbalised as seems relevant and natural to us in the
state thus feigned.
-
In the strictest scientific spirit we can report all the
behavior, verbal and otherwise, that may underlie our
imputations of propositional attitudes, and we may go on
to speculate as we please upon the causes and effects of
his behavior; but, so long as we do not switch muses,
the essentially dramatic idiom of propositional
attitudes will find no place.
-
The Scholastic word 'intentional' was revived by
Brentano in connection with the verbs of propositional
attitude and related verbs of the sort studies in
(section 32) - 'hunt', 'want', etc. The division between
such idioms and the normally tractable ones is notable.
We saw how it divides referential from non-referential
occurrences of terms. Moreover it is intimately related
to the division between behaviorism and mentalism,
between efficient cause and final cause, and between
literal theory and dramatic portrayal.
-
The analysis in (section 32) was such as to spare us any
temptation to posit peculiar "intentional objects" of
huntings, wanting, and the like. But there remains a
thesis of Brentano's illuminatingly developed of late by
Chisholm, that is directly relevant to our emerging
doubts over the propositional attitudes and other
intentional locutions. It is roughly that there is no
breaking out of the intentional vocabulary by explaining
its members in other terms. Our present reflections are
favorable to this thesis. Even indirect quotation, for
all its tameness in comparison with other idioms of
propositional attitude, and for all its concern with
overt speech behavior, seems insusceptable to general
reduction to behavioral terms; the best we can do with
it is switch to direct quotation, and this adds
information. And when we turn to belief sentences the
difficulty is doubled. For, first there is trouble, e.g.
over dumbness or mendacity, in explaining belief as
disposition to assent to sentences at all; and second
there remains, much as in the case of indirect
quotation, the question what deviations to allow between
the sentences actually assented to and the second-hand
reports......
....
One may accept the Brentano thesis as showing the
indispensability of intentional idioms and the
importance of an autonomous science of intention, or as
showing the baselessness of of intentional idioms
and the emptiness of a science of intention. My
attitude, unlike Brentano's, is the second. To accept
intentional usage at face value is, we saw, to postulate
translation relations as somehow objectively valid
though indeterminate in principle relative to the
totality of speech dispositions. Such postulation
promises little gain in scientific insight if there is
no better ground for it than that the supposed
translation relations are presupposed by the vernacular
of semantics and intention.'
-
Quine
The Double Standard
Flight from Intension
Word and Object (1960), p218-221
--
David Longley
CDJ
On Mon, 16 Dec 1996, David Longley wrote:
> Oh.. I see, Quine misunderstands it too.....
Yup.
[A lot of Quine, which, though essentially right, is put in an unhelpful
melodramatic form, snipped]
> We saw how it divides referential from non-referential
> occurrences of terms.
This is so unhelpful that it deserves to be pointed out as untrue.
> Even indirect quotation, for
> all its tameness in comparison with other idioms of
> propositional attitude, and for all its concern with
> overt speech behavior, seems insusceptable to general
> reduction to behavioral terms;
In the context of the rather strict notion of _behavioral term_ Quine has
in mind, this is true. But that is a bad notion to have (and its tied to
his committment to the Myth of the Given).
Under a better notion of _behavioral_, Quine's statement here is false.
> the best we can do with
> it is switch to direct quotation, and this adds
> information.
Note: It also takes some away.
I'm working on a paper at the moment which explains, in a general manner,
the significance of the intensional context (though Russell, not Quine, is
the focus of that part of the paper). I'll send you a copy of it - if
you like - when I'm done (which will be soon, as it's due no later than
the 6th of January).
The intensionality phenomenon doens't get a lot of play in the paper - I
include it more for the glam-effect than anything.
CDJ
Jim Balter
In article <850763...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Oh.. I see, Quine misunderstands it too.....
>
> 'In general the underlying methodology of the idioms of
> propositional attitude contrasts strikingly with the
> spirit of objective science at its most representative.
> For consider again quotation, direct and indirect. When
> we quote a man's utterance directly we report it almost
> as we might a bird call. However significant the
> utterance, direct quotation merely reports the physical
> incident and leaves any implications to us.
Since the implications to us are what counts, whereas that is not the case
with bird calls, it seems quite evident that Quine is misunderstanding.
> On the other
> hand in indirect quotation we project ourselves into
> what, from his remarks and other indications, we imagine
> the speaker's state of mind to have been, and then we
> say what, in our language, is natural and relevant for
> us in the state thus feigned.
None of this is avoided in direct quotation, unless no one who understands the
language in which the quotation is written is considered. If Longley read
what Quine wrote, or if he read what I said Quine wrote, *Longley* does
interpretion, and it is this interpretation that is the most critical link.
To obtain only the extensional aspects of Quine's statements, he would have
had to have written them in Urdu.
It is quite obvious to me that Quine is mistaken, and that position is
supported by Longley's attempts to change my mind by the mere act of repeating
the quotation, as if it were a matter of operant conditioning to get me to sit
up for certain bird calls. What Longley doesn't seem able to accept or
comprehend is that "This quote shows that Quine does not misunderstand" is a
very severe form of "says that". And if Longley isn't willing to say that
because it would put him in that trap, it just shows what an intellectual
coward he is.
--
<J Q B>
David Longley
In article <jqbE2H...@netcom.com> j...@netcom.com "Jim Balter" writes:
> In article <850704...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
> David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >What I was looking for here was support from folk with
> >complementary skills, not a trial by fire....
>
> But since you didn't find it, you decided to make everyone pay for it for 18
> months or more. For how many years will you continue trying to shove this
> stuff down people's throats?
> --
> <J Q B>
>
As long as it takes for people like you to learn I guess. And I
wouldn't take yourself, or the other misguided 'contributors' who
you consider to be of like mind, to be as representative of the
AI community as you would *like* to think.
I am quite confident that the evidence supports what I am
"shovelling", which is why I find it so easy to keep referencing
it. I'm also confident that one of the reasons, if not *the*
reason, why so little is achieved in newsgroups such as this is
simply because folk like yourself do not understand the degree to
which you are engaged in nefarious rhetoric, and can't just be
*talked* out of it. Cognitive therapy just does not work in my
book. ALl I'm doing in responding to you is using your posts as
an opportunity to talk obliquely to other readers.
No doubt you *think* otherwise, but then I don't think you and a
few others like you really appreciate how sterile your conception
of "rationality" is. When I and others try and point out how and
why you *are* lost in rhetoric, we just get more of the same.
You need to do some *radical* re-thinking if you are going to
make any serious progress on any of the issues which currently
render AI such a confused mess.
--
David Longley
David Longley
Some time ago I remarked that the arguments between the
logicists and their opponents (and I was specifically referring
to the exchange between Hayes and McDermott) lost a lot of its
force because neither side seemed to be aware of the problems of
trying to quantify into intensional contexts (or at least they
did not refer to the issue in their papers).
It makes no sense for Hayes to try to formalise the heuristics of
folk psychology or folk physics in the language of the FOPC, not
only because logical inference breaks down within intensional
contexts because of the problem of quantifying in (logical
inference depending in the quantifiers and conditional), but
because we already have it formalised as extensional physics and
behaviour science.
Yet still see McCarthy trying to do this in his recent work,a nd
where we do not see the logicists *meddling* or modalizing in
suspect logic in the hope of absorbing all in site rather than
being selective, we find other leaders of AI doing psychological
*modelling* in the name of AI.
But it is one thing to describe and build models of the
heuristics which humans and other animals instantiate and another
to build normative models. If AI tries to do the latter it will
just get lost in engineering and technology generally. If it
tries to do the former, it will be indistinguishable from
psychology.
The proper role for Ai is in the development of normative
decision theory. It also has very applied areas of application
which the leaders in AI should seek government funding for rather
than wasting their skills on defence initiatives.
see http://www.uni-hamburg.de/~kriminol/TS/tskr.htm
--
David Longley
Jim Balter
In article <850785...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <jqbE2H...@netcom.com> j...@netcom.com "Jim Balter" writes:
>
>> In article <850704...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
>> David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> >What I was looking for here was support from folk with
>> >complementary skills, not a trial by fire....
>>
>> But since you didn't find it, you decided to make everyone pay for it for 18
>> months or more. For how many years will you continue trying to shove this
>> stuff down people's throats?
>> --
>> <J Q B>
>>
>
>As long as it takes for people like you to learn I guess.
Even if you are right about everything you say, *especially* if you are right
about everything you say, you are incredibly incompetent as a techer, so this
will take you a very very long time. Why not give up now?
>And I
>wouldn't take yourself, or the other misguided 'contributors' who
>you consider to be of like mind, to be as representative of the
>AI community as you would *like* to think.
No, I'm not typical, as I have repeatedly told you, and this is *not* "the AI
community", this is just one particularly strange newsgroup.
>I am quite confident that the evidence supports what I am
>"shovelling", which is why I find it so easy to keep referencing
>it. I'm also confident that one of the reasons, if not *the*
>reason, why so little is achieved in newsgroups such as this is
>simply because folk like yourself do not understand the degree to
>which you are engaged in nefarious rhetoric, and can't just be
>*talked* out of it.
If I can't be talked out of it, then you are an incredible idiot to
keep trying. I take it back; you are an incredible idiot in any case.
--
<J Q B>
JRStern
>Why do you consider yourself spokesman fo rthe rest of the
>readers of comp.ai.philosophy?
That was addressed to someone other than me, but the obvious answer is
"well, why not?" It's a common enough "extentional" stance on this
and other newsgroups, inviting to anyone advancing ideas, which is
what we mostly do here.
For my part, I cannot understand why *anybody* on this list takes the
attitude that they have a uniquely good understanding of the issues.
And frankly, most don't have that attitude, with one primary
exception, DL.
Joshua Stern
76200...@compuserve.com
Anders N Weinstein
In article <850794...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>It makes no sense for Hayes to try to formalise the heuristics of
>folk psychology or folk physics in the language of the FOPC, not
>only because logical inference breaks down within intensional
>contexts because of the problem of quantifying in (logical
>inference depending in the quantifiers and conditional), but
>because we already have it formalised as extensional physics and
>behaviour science.
I pointed out many moons ago that Pat Hayes' work on formalizing
commonsense knowledge, e.g. in the Naive Physics Manifesto, is
in 100% pure unadulterated extensional FOPC. It is as free of
intension as any Quinean would like.
I belive you reveal again that you don't really understand the
technical terms you bandy about: you confuse the precise term
"intensional" as applied to a language or context with a blurry, broad
brush notion meaning something like "common-sense, naive,
heuristic-guided, irrational, non-scientific". Yet they are not
co-extensive.
Common-sense physics in Hayes' sense is naive, but not the least
bit "intensional".
>Yet still see McCarthy trying to do this in his recent work,a nd
>where we do not see the logicists *meddling* or modalizing in
>suspect logic in the hope of absorbing all in site rather than
>being selective, we find other leaders of AI doing psychological
>*modelling* in the name of AI.
True McCarthy's papers contain several explorations of formalizations
of reasoning about knowledge and belief.
To understand why, you need to think about the possible uses for a
robot or natural language system to engage in dialogues with ordinary
human beings (or other artificail systems) in which knowledge or belief
play a role. "John knows the combination to this lock" can be very
valuable information for a system if the goal is to open the lock.
Again, it is simply not true that reasoning about knowledge is
simply a matter of capturing the "heuristics" of a folk-theory. For
example, the Wise Man puzzle (look it up) is a standard sort of test
case for epistemic logic; it seems to involve normatively *correct*
reasoning about knowledge.
And while you pontificate about the value of getting practical things
done, you need to acknowledge that the need for reasoning about
knowledge in AI arises precisely from the desire to get practical
things done.
I can see it now: SRI's robots will make a plan to get needed
information from John and so solve the problem (and some can do such a
thing after a fashion already). Longley's logically purist robots will
turn off their control panels and print out "Sorry, your idiom resists
incorporation into my canonical notation. It is impossible to reason
with such locutions". Which would be the superior technology?
David Longley
In article <Pine.GSO.3.95L.96121...@unixs2.cis.pitt.edu>
cdjo...@pitt.edu "CDJ" writes:
>
> On Mon, 16 Dec 1996, David Longley wrote:
>
> > Oh.. I see, Quine misunderstands it too.....
>
> Yup.
>
> [A lot of Quine, which, though essentially right, is put in an unhelpful
> melodramatic form, snipped]
>
> > We saw how it divides referential from non-referential
> > occurrences of terms.
>
> This is so unhelpful that it deserves to be pointed out as untrue.
>
> > Even indirect quotation, for
> > all its tameness in comparison with other idioms of
> > propositional attitude, and for all its concern with
> > overt speech behavior, seems insusceptable to general
> > reduction to behavioral terms;
>
> In the context of the rather strict notion of _behavioral term_ Quine has
> in mind, this is true. But that is a bad notion to have (and its tied to
> his committment to the Myth of the Given).
"strict notion", "is true", "bad notion", his committment
to"....this is all rhetoric.
>
> Under a better notion of _behavioral_, Quine's statement here is false.
>
> > the best we can do with
> > it is switch to direct quotation, and this adds
> > information.
>
"better notion of "behavioral" - again - rhetoric. For Quine, his
behaviourism only goes as far as "evidence". The problem of "said
that" and serial reproduction is a well fact of life.
Appreciation of the pointy has even led to police having to tape
interviews in this country.
> Note: It also takes some away.
>
> I'm working on a paper at the moment which explains, in a general manner,
> the significance of the intensional context (though Russell, not Quine, is
> the focus of that part of the paper). I'll send you a copy of it - if
> you like - when I'm done (which will be soon, as it's due no later than
> the 6th of January).
>
I discuss all that I would *publish* here, and acknowledge my
sources too. I assume you do too. But yes, I would be grateful
for a copy.
> The intensionality phenomenon doens't get a lot of play in the paper - I
> include it more for the glam-effect than anything.
>
That's just pompous nonsense. Sure one can go back to Russell and
even further with the advantage of having read and discussed
issues explicated by Carnap, Chisholm, Sellars and Quine - but
doing so is just a rhetorical trick. I hope that's NOT what you
are succumbing to.
--
David Longley
David Longley
In article <jqbE2J...@netcom.com> j...@netcom.com "Jim Balter" writes:
> In article <850763...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
> David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >Oh.. I see, Quine misunderstands it too.....
> >
> > 'In general the underlying methodology of the idioms of
> > propositional attitude contrasts strikingly with the
> > spirit of objective science at its most representative.
> > For consider again quotation, direct and indirect. When
> > we quote a man's utterance directly we report it almost
> > as we might a bird call. However significant the
> > utterance, direct quotation merely reports the physical
> > incident and leaves any implications to us.
>
> Since the implications to us are what counts, whereas that is not the case
> with bird calls, it seems quite evident that Quine is misunderstanding.
>
You really don't understand do you? The implications here are
logical implications based on de dicto accounts. If I reported
that Oedipus said he wanted to sleep with his mother, the
implications you would draw would be quite different from if I
accurately reported that he said "I want to sleep with Jocasta".
I really don't want to waste any more time arguing this. Once you
HAVE seen the problem, the problem for the more removed
propositional attitudes makes "cognitive science" in many guises
come tumbling down all over the place. But to appreciate that,
you really have got to have a good grasp of what is actually done
in the name of "cognitive science".
--
David Longley
CDJ
On Wed, 18 Dec 1996, David Longley wrote:
> "better notion of "behavioral" - again - rhetoric. For Quine, his
> behaviourism only goes as far as "evidence".
There's the rub. It's too bad you've never heard of the Myth of the Given.
> > The intensionality phenomenon doens't get a lot of play in the paper - I
> > include it more for the glam-effect than anything.
>
> That's just pompous nonsense.
It's neither pompous nor nonsense. The simple fact of the matter is that
intensional contexts have captured people's imagination. It is therefore
an effective way of holding someone's attention to explain it.
> Sure one can go back to Russell and
> even further with the advantage of having read and discussed
> issues explicated by Carnap, Chisholm, Sellars and Quine - but
> doing so is just a rhetorical trick. I hope that's NOT what you
> are succumbing to.
(1) I don't find these other thinkers terribly helpful on the matter.
(2) Yeah - going back to Russell makes me a rhetorical trickster.
(3) What about going back to Quine, having read and discussed issues by
the major psychologists in your field?
(4) Longley's Rule: On pain of being a rhetorical trickster, one is not
permitted to discuss someone after having read and discussed others who
are relevant to that person.
CDJ
David Longley
In article <596q70$e...@usenet.srv.cis.pitt.edu>
ande...@pitt.edu "Anders N Weinstein" writes:
> In article <850794...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
> David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> >It makes no sense for Hayes to try to formalise the heuristics of
> >folk psychology or folk physics in the language of the FOPC, not
> >only because logical inference breaks down within intensional
> >contexts because of the problem of quantifying in (logical
> >inference depending in the quantifiers and conditional), but
> >because we already have it formalised as extensional physics and
> >behaviour science.
>
> I pointed out many moons ago that Pat Hayes' work on formalizing
> commonsense knowledge, e.g. in the Naive Physics Manifesto, is
> in 100% pure unadulterated extensional FOPC. It is as free of
> intension as any Quinean would like.
>
> I belive you reveal again that you don't really understand the
> technical terms you bandy about: you confuse the precise term
> "intensional" as applied to a language or context with a blurry, broad
> brush notion meaning something like "common-sense, naive,
> heuristic-guided, irrational, non-scientific". Yet they are not
> co-extensive.
It's your beliefs that are wrong. How do you think people acquire
naive physical notions? They're acquired the same way that folk
"psychological" notions are learned, via the heuristics of
classical condistioning WITHOUT the support of extensional
analysis.
I'm not just rehashing the ESTABLISHED literature in "Fragments"
but offering the conclusions of over 20 years of my research in
to learning as studied by psychologists, AND what I refer to as
the EXTENSIOJAL STANCE.
What *you* are confusing is the originality/unfamiliarity of what
I have been saying with your belief that *I* am unfamiliar with
conventional usage. The fact is that apart form the paper by
Kahneman and Tversky (1982) on the Conjunction Fallacy, there is
little mention in the mainstream psychological literature of
problems of the intensional. This is largely original with my
pointing out how Bruner and the rest of Attribution Theory can be
seen to be providing an EMPIRICAL account of the modus operandi
of intensional judgment, and what the normative alternatives are.
You really do need to look at this again.
>
> Common-sense physics in Hayes' sense is naive, but not the least
> bit "intensional".
>
> >Yet still see McCarthy trying to do this in his recent work,a nd
> >where we do not see the logicists *meddling* or modalizing in
> >suspect logic in the hope of absorbing all in site rather than
> >being selective, we find other leaders of AI doing psychological
> >*modelling* in the name of AI.
>
> True McCarthy's papers contain several explorations of formalizations
> of reasoning about knowledge and belief.
>
> To understand why, you need to think about the possible uses for a
> robot or natural language system to engage in dialogues with ordinary
> human beings (or other artificail systems) in which knowledge or belief
> play a role. "John knows the combination to this lock" can be very
> valuable information for a system if the goal is to open the lock.
>
I am well aware how and why McCarthy does the above and have
discussed it with him. The point is that he is going down an old
route that Carnap tried in "Meaning and Necessity". You have got
to look at what happens in practice with the intensional idioms
to understand the real problem for measurement and analysis.
That's why I keep refering to the following as my exemplary case:
'In general the underlying methodology of the idioms of
propositional attitude contrasts strikingly with the
spirit of objective science at its most representative.
For consider again quotation, direct and indirect. When
we quote a man's utterance directly we report it almost
as we might a bird call. However significant the
utterance, direct quotation merely reports the physical
incident and leaves any implications to us. On the other
hand in indirect quotation we project ourselves into
what, from his remarks and other indications, we imagine
the speaker's state of mind to have been, and then we
say what, in our language, is natural and relevant for
us in the state thus feigned. An indirect quotation we
can usually expect to rate only as better or worse, more
or less faithful, and we cannot even hope for a strict
standard of more and less; what is involve d is
evaluation, relative to special purposes, of an
essentially dramatic act. Correspondingly for the other
propositional attitudes, for all of them can be thought
of as involving something like quotation of one's own
imagined verbal response to an imagined situation.
-
Casting our real selves thus in unreal roles, we do not
generally know how much reality to hold constant.
Quandaries arise. But despite them we find ourselves
attributing beliefs, wishes and strivings even to
creatures lacking the power of speech, such is our
dramatic virtuosity. We project ourselves even into what
from his behavior we imagine a mouse's state to have
been, and dramatize it as a belief, wish, or striving,
verbalised as seems relevant and natural to us in the
state thus feigned.
-
In the strictest scientific spirit we can report all the
behavior, verbal and otherwise, that may underlie our
imputations of propositional attitudes, and we may go on
to speculate as we please upon the causes and effects of
his behavior; but, so long as we do not switch muses,
the essentially dramatic idiom of propositional
attitudes will find no place.
-
The Scholastic word 'intentional' was revived by
Brentano in connection with the verbs of propositional
attitude and related verbs of the sort studies in
(section 32) - 'hunt', 'want', etc. The division between
such idioms and the normally tractable ones is notable.
We saw how it divides referential from non-referential
occurrences of terms. Moreover it is intimately related
to the division between behaviorism and mentalism,
between efficient cause and final cause, and between
literal theory and dramatic portrayal.
-
The analysis in (section 32) was such as to spare us any
temptation to posit peculiar "intentional objects" of
huntings, wanting, and the like. But there remains a
thesis of Brentano's illuminatingly developed of late by
Chisholm, that is directly relevant to our emerging
doubts over the propositional attitudes and other
intentional locutions. It is roughly that there is no
breaking out of the intentional vocabulary by explaining
its members in other terms. Our present reflections are
favorable to this thesis. Even indirect quotation, for
all its tameness in comparison with other idioms of
propositional attitude, and for all its concern with
overt speech behavior, seems insusceptable to general
reduction to behavioral terms; the best we can do with
it is switch to direct quotation, and this adds
> Again, it is simply not true that reasoning about knowledge is
> simply a matter of capturing the "heuristics" of a folk-theory. For
> example, the Wise Man puzzle (look it up) is a standard sort of test
> case for epistemic logic; it seems to involve normatively *correct*
> reasoning about knowledge.
I am talking about what people do every day, and the errors those
practices lead to in relaying information, writing reports, and
generally trying to efficiently communicate. They evidence is
vast,a nd the importance of what I am pointing out inescapable
once you have grasped it. All the above and following shows is
that you are, indeed in the grip of an ideology which is blinding
you to the facts of the matter.
>
> And while you pontificate about the value of getting practical things
> done, you need to acknowledge that the need for reasoning about
> knowledge in AI arises precisely from the desire to get practical
> things done.
And things will NOT get practically done so long as folk do not
learn from the analyses Quine has provided:
For:
'Once it is shown that a region of discourse is not
extensional, then according to Quine, we have reason to
doubt its claim to describe the structure of reality.'
C. Hookway
Logic: Canonical Notation and Extensionality
Quine (1988)
'The first-order predicate calculus is an extensional
logic in which Leibniz's Law is taken as an axiomatic
principle. Such a logic cannot admit 'intensional' or
'referentially opaque' predicates whose defining
characteristic is that they flout that principle.'
U. T. Place (1987)
Skinner Re-Skinned P. 244
In B.F. Skinner Consensus and Controversy
Eds. S. Modgil & C. Modgil
>
> I can see it now: SRI's robots will make a plan to get needed
> information from John and so solve the problem (and some can do such a
> thing after a fashion already). Longley's logically purist robots will
> turn off their control panels and print out "Sorry, your idiom resists
> incorporation into my canonical notation. It is impossible to reason
> with such locutions". Which would be the superior technology?
>
You miss everything that's important. Akll I am getting is *YOUR*
inability to grasp what the real issue is. In the above example,
YOU will just be providing folk psychological accounts of what
the robots are *doing*, just as primitives anthropomorphize
nature in general.
--
David Longley
Anders N Weinstein
In article <850929...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> I belive you reveal again that you don't really understand the
>> technical terms you bandy about: you confuse the precise term
>> "intensional" as applied to a language or context with a blurry, broad
>> brush notion meaning something like "common-sense, naive,
>> heuristic-guided, irrational, non-scientific". Yet they are not
>> co-extensive.
>
>It's your beliefs that are wrong. How do you think people acquire
>naive physical notions? They're acquired the same way that folk
>"psychological" notions are learned, via the heuristics of
>classical condistioning WITHOUT the support of extensional
>analysis.
I am tempted to rest my case on your response.
Let me distinguish some terms:
Extensional-1 = in an extensional language, i.e. one
permitting intersubstitutability of co-referential expressions
salva veritate.
Intensional-1 = not extensional-1. I.e. in a language with non-extensional
contexts.
Extensional-2 = scientific, governed by "scientific method",
"effective procedures", and the like.
Intensional-2 = not extensional-2. I.e. unscientific, vague,
common-sensical, governed by heuristic procedures, and the like.
I assert:
[1] Hayes' naive physics is extensional-1.
Do you disagree? I don't think this should be controversial. The
portions presented in his paper are formalized entirely in an
extensional language in which Leibniz' law hold. It may be a
common-sense theory, it may be qualitative, it may be FALSE, but dammit
it is extensional-1.
I would say that the second pair are very vague and imprecise terms.
In your usage they are also value laden terms, in that "intensional-2"
entails something like Quine's "second-class". But insofar as I
understand your usage, I would also grant that
[2] Hayes' naive physics is not extensional-2.
Now a logician of your accumen should be able to conclude from this
[3] "extensional-1" and "extensional-2" are not co-extensive.
or if you like the material mode,
[3'] NOT (x)(x is intensional-1 <-> x is intensional-2)
That is why I say it is a bad mistake to confuse the two terms.
I wonder what part of this you disagree with.
BTW, perhaps we can represent the Quine's "flight from intension" argument
as a belief that:
[q] (x) (x is intensional-1 -> x is intensional-2)
But that tells nothing against naive physics or other common-sense
beliefs.
FOOTNOTE:
I take it that the second pair are not really suitable for
use in the exact sciences, in view of their vagueness. So I can't
resist suggesting the Godelian observations:
"extensional-2" is hetero-logical.
"intensional-2" is auto-logical.
(The paradox at the basis of the Godel proof: a predicate of words is
auto-logical iff it applies to itself; hetero-logical iff not. "short"
is auto-logical, "long" is hetero-logical.
Q: Is "hetero-logical" hetero-logical?)
>inability to grasp what the real issue is. In the above example,
>YOU will just be providing folk psychological accounts of what
>the robots are *doing*, just as primitives anthropomorphize
>nature in general.
What you are arguing against is the anthropomorphizing of human beings.
Jim Balter
In article <850875...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <jqbE2J...@netcom.com> j...@netcom.com "Jim Balter" writes:
>
>> David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> >Oh.. I see, Quine misunderstands it too.....
>> >
>> > 'In general the underlying methodology of the idioms of
>> > propositional attitude contrasts strikingly with the
>> > spirit of objective science at its most representative.
>> > For consider again quotation, direct and indirect. When
>> > we quote a man's utterance directly we report it almost
>> > as we might a bird call. However significant the
>> > utterance, direct quotation merely reports the physical
>> > incident and leaves any implications to us.
>>
>> with bird calls, it seems quite evident that Quine is misunderstanding.
>>
>
>You really don't understand do you? The implications here are
>logical implications based on de dicto accounts. If I reported
>that Oedipus said he wanted to sleep with his mother, the
>implications you would draw would be quite different from if I
>accurately reported that he said "I want to sleep with Jocasta".
I already pointed out that the discussion doesn't end there, since I'm drawing
implications in either case, and it is in the drawing of implications, whether
by the intermediary or the final recipient, that the problems lie. Since that
entails that the implications would be different, your conclusion that I don't
understand shows what a simpleton you are. Your comments about Hubey alerted
me to look for this, and I'm now seeing that the problem is not merely your
arrogance, but the combination of that with the fact that you just don't
reason very deeply.
>I really don't want to waste any more time arguing this.
Since you never get further then your simple statement above, you never offer
a real argument. This is like Hubey, who keeps going "see, n! isn't in N for
all N", which is not what anyone disputed, and never addresses the points made
by others. You guys are exactly the nefarious sorts that Quine talks about;
you have no interest in an exchange, you just want to get everyone to agree
with you.
>Once you
>HAVE seen the problem, the problem for the more removed
>propositional attitudes makes "cognitive science" in many guises
>come tumbling down all over the place.
Sounds like Hubey. A argument is needed here, not just opinionated
handwaving.
--
<J Q B>
Jim Balter
In article <jqbE2n...@netcom.com>, Jim Balter <j...@netcom.com> wrote:
>a real argument. This is like Hubey, who keeps going "see, n! isn't in N for
>all N",
What I typed is very different from what I was thinking (make sense of that,
Longley), an apparent (whatever that means) consequence of lack of sleep. I
meant (what are meanings) "see, n! is in N for all n in N".
--
<J Q B>
David Longley
In article <Pine.GSO.3.95L.96121...@unixs6.cis.pitt.edu>
cdjo...@pitt.edu "CDJ" writes:
> (4) Longley's Rule: On pain of being a rhetorical trickster, one is not
> permitted to discuss someone after having read and discussed others who
> are relevant to that person.
>
> CDJ
>
I post what I have to say here.
--
David Longley
David Longley
>
> I already pointed out that the discussion doesn't end there, since I'm drawing
> implications in either case, and it is in the drawing of implications, whether
> by the intermediary or the final recipient, that the problems lie. Since that
> entails that the implications would be different, your conclusion that I don't
> understand shows what a simpleton you are. Your comments about Hubey alerted
> me to look for this, and I'm now seeing that the problem is not merely your
> arrogance, but the combination of that with the fact that you just don't
> reason very deeply.
>
This is largely a personal matter you have become embroiled in,
and it accounts for this endless stream of petty personal
remarks. You've already lost the appropriate sense of perspective
as a consequence. The context of what I have been advocating
requires one to look to extensional support such as rDBMSs,
4GLs and descriptive statistics to arrive at representative
premises for further analysis. *That* is my implicit referent. To
claim that I don't know how to argue (use material implication
with quantifiers) is to dispute that I know how to analyse
databases and undertake statistical analyses appropriately. Now,
I have provided evidence in support of my own commitment to those
skills in "Fragments" (the creation of the PROBE infrastructure
AND the analyses of the "What Works" data, AND the fact that I've
taught computing and stats extensively. Yet I am more than happy
to agree that *I* make mistakes, often silly ones:
BUT THAT HUMAN FALLIBILITY IS AT THE BASIS OF MY WHOLE ARGUMENT
I don't know about "deeply", but you seem to have a more
fundamental problem in that you can't even read what's right in
front of your eyes.
--
David Longley
Jim Balter
In article <851007...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
Perhaps the nefarious Longley could explain how that is relevant to charging
that CDJ is a rhetorical trickster for having read Russell. And if I have
misunderstood him, perhaps he could explain what he meant without indulging in
nefarious ad hominems.
--
<J Q B>
David Longley
Behaviour is fragmentary. Sometimes this becomes quite apparent
to us, and we learn from it. Most find it too much to cope
with and try to explain it away in the interests of a more
favourable self-image.
--
David Longley
David Longley
> In article <850875...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
> David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >In article <jqbE2J...@netcom.com> j...@netcom.com "Jim Balter" writes:
> >
> >> In article <850763...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
> >> David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >> >Oh.. I see, Quine misunderstands it too.....
> >> >
> >> > 'In general the underlying methodology of the idioms of
> >> > propositional attitude contrasts strikingly with the
> >> > spirit of objective science at its most representative.
> >> > For consider again quotation, direct and indirect. When
> >> > we quote a man's utterance directly we report it almost
> >> > as we might a bird call. However significant the
> >> > utterance, direct quotation merely reports the physical
> >> > incident and leaves any implications to us.
> >>
> >> Since the implications to us are what counts, whereas that is not the case
> >> with bird calls, it seems quite evident that Quine is misunderstanding.
> >>
> >
> >You really don't understand do you? The implications here are
> >logical implications based on de dicto accounts. If I reported
> >that Oedipus said he wanted to sleep with his mother, the
> >implications you would draw would be quite different from if I
> >accurately reported that he said "I want to sleep with Jocasta".
>
> I already pointed out that the discussion doesn't end there, since I'm drawing
> implications in either case, and it is in the drawing of implications, whether
> by the intermediary or the final recipient, that the problems lie. Since that
> entails that the implications would be different, your conclusion that I don't
> understand shows what a simpleton you are. Your comments about Hubey alerted
> me to look for this, and I'm now seeing that the problem is not merely your
> arrogance, but the combination of that with the fact that you just don't
> reason very deeply.
Try to understand - it is not the implication (material
conditional) that's the problem, but the failure of subtitutivity
of identicals salva veritate within intensional contexts such as
the propositional attitudes. Reasoning, in its deductive form is
NOT a psychological process.
I suggest you stop trying to be an amateur "depth psychologist"
too, you're no good at it. Look at the evidence and stop trying
to understand the imagined "author".
> >I really don't want to waste any more time arguing this.
>
> Since you never get further then your simple statement above, you never offer
> a real argument. This is like Hubey, who keeps going "see, n! isn't in N for
> all N", which is not what anyone disputed, and never addresses the points made
> by others. You guys are exactly the nefarious sorts that Quine talks about;
> you have no interest in an exchange, you just want to get everyone to agree
> with you.
>
I'm not interested in the sort of "exchange" you have to offer.
What I am looking for is further empirical research evidence. I
have already coverted the work by Tversky & Kahneman, the
original work on Serial Reproduction by Postman, the work by
Bruner, and literally textbooks and journals full of similar
heuristic based judgments, noty to mention all the perceptual
illusions and examples of conformity.
You need an education in this area Balter, as do some of the
other members of your merry band of self appointed "critics".
> >Once you
> >HAVE seen the problem, the problem for the more removed
> >propositional attitudes makes "cognitive science" in many guises
> >come tumbling down all over the place.
>
> Sounds like Hubey. A argument is needed here, not just opinionated
> handwaving.
>
The arguments are in the references: Go and read them
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Volume 2 eds W Stroebe & M Hewstone 1991, Ch 4 pp. 83-115
98.Goldberg L R Simple models or simple processes? Some research on
clinical judgments American Psychologist,1968,23(7) p.483-496
99.Kahneman D, Slovic P & Tversky A Judgment Under Uncertainty:
Heuristics and Biases Cambridge University Press 1982
100.Kyllonen P C & Christal R E Reasoning Ability Is (Little More
Than) Working-Memory Capacity?! Intelligence 14, 389-433 1990
101.Lundberg G A Case Studies vs. Statistical Methods - An Issue
Based on Misunderstanding. Sociometry v4 pp379-83 1941
102.Meehl P E Clinical vs. Statistical Prediction: A Theoretical
Analysis and a Review of the Evidence University of Minnesota Press,
Minneapolis. 1954
103.Meehl P E When Shall We Use Our Heads Instead of the Formula?
PSYCHODIAGNOSIS: Collected Papers 1971
104.Meehl P E Causes and effects of my disturbing little book J
Person. Assess. 50,370-5,1986
105.Oskamp S Overconfidence in case-study judgments J. Consult.
Psychol. (1965), 29, 261-265
106.Sarbin T R Clinical Psychology - Art or Science? Psychometrica
v6 pp391-400 (1941)
D. On the contrast Between the Extensional and Intensional Analysis
107.Church A Intensional Isomorphism and Identity of Belief in Salmon
N & Soames S (eds) Propositions and Attitudes Oxford University Press
1980
108.Churchland P M A Neurocomputational Perspective The Nature of
Mind and The Structure of Science Bradford Books 1989
109.Dahlbom B Dennett and His Critics Blackwell, Oxford 1993
110.Deakin J F W & Longley D Naloxone Enhances Neophobia British
Journal of Pharmacology, April 1981
111.Devitt M. Meanings just ain't in the head In Meaning and Method:
Essays in Honor of Hilary Putnam Ed G. Boolos Cambridge University
Press 1990
112.Dretske F I The Intentionality of Cognitive States Midwest Studies
in Philosophy 5,281-294 1980
113.Elgin C Z Facts That Don't Matter In Meaning and Method: Essays
in Honor of Hilary Putnam Ed G. Boolos Cambridge University Press 1990
114.Eysenck H J & Eysenck S introduction to: Using Personality to
Individualize Instruction - J A Wakefield JR Edits, San Diego, 1978
115.Fodor J A Methodological Solipsism Considered as a Research
Strategy for Cognitive Psychology Behavioral-and-Brain-Sciences; 1980
Mar Vol 3(1) 63-109
116.Frege G Function and Concept in Geach P and Black M (eds)
Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege 3rd
edition : Basil Blackwell Oxford 1980
117.Frege G On Concept and Object in Geach P and Black M (eds)
Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege 3rd
edition : Basil Blackwell Oxford 1980
118.Frege G On Sense and Meaning in Geach P and Black M (eds)
Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege 3rd
edition : Basil Blackwell Oxford 1980
119.Frege G What is a Function? in Geach P and Black M (eds)
Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege 3rd
edition : Basil Blackwell Oxford 1980
120.Kripke S A A Puzzle About Belief in Salmon N & Soames S (eds)
Propositions and Attitudes Oxford University Press 1980
121.Longley D The Interaction of Brain Monoamines and Neuropeptides
In the Control of Operant Behaviour. Unsubmitted PhD Thesis: National
Institute for Medical Research London/Institute of Neurology
University of London 1983
122.Nelson R J Naming and Reference Routledge, London 1992
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Philosophical Papers Vol 2 Cambridge University Press 1975
124.Putnam H Representation and Reality Bradford Books 1988
125.Quine W V O Quantifiers and Propositional Attitudes (1956) In
The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays Harvard University Press 1966,
1972
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Paradox and Other Essays Harvard University Press 1966, 1972
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50,43-54
129.Quine W V O The Pursuit of Truth Harvard University Press
1990,1992
130.Ramsey W, Stich S & Garon J Connectionism, eliminativism, an the
future of Folk Psychology in Greenwood J D (Ed) The Future of Folk
Psychology Cambridge University Press 1991
131.Ryle G The Concept of Mind Penguin 1949
132.Schnaitter R Knowledge as Action: The Epistemology of Radical
Behaviorism in B.F. Skinner Consensus and Controversy Eds. S. Modgil
& C. Modgil Falmer Press 1987
133.Skinner B F The Operational Analysis of Psychological Terms
Psychological Review, (1945) 45, 270-77
134.Skinner B F Beyond Freedom and Dignity New York, Knopf 1971
135Skinner B F About Behaviourism New York, Knopf 1974
136.Stich S From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science: The Case
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Footnote:
Extract from an Open University Third Level Course:
Professional Judgment and Decision Making:
'There is no controversy in social science that shows such a large
body of qualitatively diverse studies coming out so uniformly in the
same direction as this one. When you are pushing 90 investigations,
predicting everything from the outcome of football games to the
diagnosis of liver disease and when you can hardly come up with a half
dozen studies showing even a weak tendency in favour of the clinician,
it is time to draw a practical conclusion, whatever theoretical
differences may still be disputed.'
Meehl 1986, pp373-4
COURSE TEXT:
JACK: Meehl's study set off, or at least much inflamed, the
'statistical versus clinical judgment' controversy, which has rumbled
on ever since, though it's somewhat less fashionable than it was.
PENELOPE: Why?
JACK: Cynically, because the human judges didn't like the results and
made sure that they or their authors didn't get the funding,
circulation or promotion they deserved. Closed shops (as most
professions are to some extent) are not likely to vote for what they
see as de-skilling, and alternative approaches that showed more
respect for the human judge became fashionable and fund worthy
(especially the expert systems we shall meet in the session after
next). Uncynically, the methodological problems in policy-capturing
research are real: it IS difficult to establish the external validity
of the results.'
Page 63 Volume 1 Introductory Text 2
And finally:
'Kelley's (1973) 'covariation principle', which is the
most fundamental assumption of contemporary attribution
theory and of that theory's characterization of people
as generally adequate intuitive scientists, is
essentially an assertion that the layperson can
recognize and make appropriate inferential use of
covariation between events. Common sense also suggests
that the ability to detect covariation would seem
necessary for understanding, predicting and controlling
social experience. The assessment of covariation between
early symptoms and later manifestations of problems, of
covariation between particular behavioural strategies
and subsequent environmental outcomes, and of
covariation between potential causes and observed
effects seems critical to people's success in responding
adaptively to the opportunities and dilemmas of social
life. Indeed, one might well be tempted to regard
harmonious social interchange and the general
effectiveness of personal functioning as EVIDENCE of
people's capacity to recognize covariation between
events.
Most research that has dealt with people's abilities to
recognize and estimate covariation has not been
flattering to the layperson's abilities. Even Peterson
and Beach (1967), in their generally positive evaluation
of 'man as an intuitive statistician' were not very
optimistic about people's capacity to appreciate
relationships between variables. In this chapter we
first review evidence of these shortcomings and then
attempt to reconcile the apparent contradiction between
peoples' failures in the laboratory and their successes
in meeting the demands of everyday social judgement and
interaction.
Judging Covariation from Fourfold Contingency Tables
Most of the research available at the time of the
Peterson and Beach review was on people's ability to
estimate association correctly from fourfold, presence-
absence tables of the type presented below, in which the
task is simply to determine whether symptom X is
associated with disease A.
DISEASE A
Present Absent
Present 20 10
SYMPTOM X
Absent 80 40
This task would seem superficially to be the least
demanding covariation-detection problem that one could
pose. The data are dichotomous rather than continuous.
There are no problems of prior data collection,
estimation, or recall; there are no prior, potentially
misleading notions of the relationship; and the data are
conveniently arrayed in summary form that should promote
accurate assessments of covariation. Nevertheless, the
evidence (for example, Smedslund 1963; Ward and Jenkins
1965) shows that people generally perform such tasks
quite poorly.
Almost exclusive reliance upon the 'present/present'
cells seems to be a particularly common failing. Many
subjects say that symptom X is associated with disease A
simply because many of the people with the disease do in
fact have the symptom. Other subjects pay attention only
to two cells. Some of these will conclude that the
relationship is positive because more people who have
the disease have the symptom than do people who do not
have the disease. Others conclude that the relationship
is negative because more people with the disease do not
have symptom A than have it.
Without formal statistical training, very few people
intuitively understand that no judgment of association
can be made legitimately without simultaneously
considering ALL FOUR cells. The appropriate method
compares the ratio of the two cells in the 'present'
column to that of the two cells in the 'absent' column.
One might be tempted to dismiss this research as simply
a demonstration that lay people cannot 'read'
contingency tables and that the errors and biases shown
are artifacts of the unusual format of the judgmental
task. The incapacity, however, resembles shortcomings
that have been observed in circumstances that do not
require 'table reading'. In chapter 3 we reviewed the
literature on the ability of people (and animals) to
learn from negative or null instances. It should be
recalled that learning is greatly retarded or prevented
altogether when the instances are conceptually negative
('blue things are NOT gleeps'). The finding that
subjects are preoccupied with the present/present cell
in contingency tables is reminiscent of people's
inability to learn from negative instances.'
R. Nisbett and L. Ross (1980)
Ch.5 Assessment of Covariation p.90-92
Not only does this sit well with Popperian falsificationism and the
Quine-Duhem thesis (Quine 1951) as the LOGIC of scientific discovery,
but in eschewing intuitive strategies, in not going beyond deduction
(not 'going beyond the data given'), a co-operative use of technology
can in the end only pay dividends in the quest to more effectively
manage:
'Humans did not "make it to the moon" (or unravel the
mysteries of the double helix or deduce the existence of
quarks) by trusting the availability and
representativeness heuristics or by relying on the
vagaries of informal data collection and interpretation.
On the contrary, these triumphs were achieved by the use
of formal research methodology and normative principles
of scientific inference. Furthermore, as Dawes (1976)
pointed out, no single person could have solved all the
problems involved in such necessarily collective efforts
as space exploration. Getting to the moon was a joint
project, if not of 'idiots savants', at least of savants
whose individual areas of expertise were extremely
limited - one savant who knew a great deal about the
propellant properties of solid fuels but little about
the guidance capabilities of small computers, another
savant who knew a great deal about the guidance
capabilities of small computers but virtually nothing
about gravitational effects on moving objects, and so
forth. Finally, those savants included people who
believed that redheads are hot-tempered, who bought
their last car on the cocktail-party advice of an
acquaintance's brother-in-law, and whose mastery of the
formal rules of scientific inference did not notably
spare them from the social conflicts and personal
disappointments experienced by their fellow humans. The
very impressive results of organised intellectual
endeavour, in short, provide no basis for contradicting
our generalizations about human inferential
shortcomings. Those accomplishments are collective, at
least in the sense that we all stand on the shoulders of
those who have gone before; and most of them have been
achieved by using normative principles of inference
often conspicuously absent from everyday life. Most
importantly, there is no logical contradiction between
the assertion that people can be very impressively
intelligent on some occasions or in some domains and the
assertion that they can make howling inferential errors
on other occasions or in other domains.'
R. Nisbett and L. Ross (1980)
Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social
Judgment
My general conclusion is that *many* psychologists have in gfact
misread what their discipline has all been about since the 1960s.
As an ampirical discipline, and in contrast to the technology of
AI, it is a catalogue of the failings of a system (*human*
information processing) optimised for fault tolerance
biologically, but minimally rational without the support of the
edifice of scientific method.
--
David Longley
Jim Balter
In article <851043...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> I already pointed out that the discussion doesn't end there, since I'm drawing
>> implications in either case, and it is in the drawing of implications, whether
>> by the intermediary or the final recipient, that the problems lie. Since that
>> entails that the implications would be different, your conclusion that I don't
>> understand shows what a simpleton you are. Your comments about Hubey alerted
>> me to look for this, and I'm now seeing that the problem is not merely your
>> arrogance, but the combination of that with the fact that you just don't
>> reason very deeply.
>
>Try to understand - it is not the implication (material
>conditional) that's the problem, but the failure of subtitutivity
>of identicals salva veritate within intensional contexts such as
>the propositional attitudes. Reasoning, in its deductive form is
>NOT a psychological process.
I understand that "drawing implications" is not material implication,
and that that equation is nefarious.
>I suggest you stop trying to be an amateur "depth psychologist"
>too, you're no good at it. Look at the evidence and stop trying
>to understand the imagined "author".
>I'm not interested in the sort of "exchange" you have to offer.
>What I am looking for is further empirical research evidence.
To only be interested in what one hopes to find is nefarious.
>You need an education in this area Balter, as do some of the
>other members of your merry band of self appointed "critics".
Nefarious ad hominem.
>> Sounds like Hubey. A argument is needed here, not just opinionated
>> handwaving.
>>
>
>The arguments are in the references: Go and read them
A bibliography is not an argument. But if it were, my refutation
is logical thought. Go master it.
>My general conclusion is that *many* psychologists have in gfact
>misread what their discipline has all been about since the 1960s.
>
>As an ampirical discipline, and in contrast to the technology of
>AI, it is a catalogue of the failings of a system (*human*
>information processing) optimised for fault tolerance
>biologically, but minimally rational without the support of the
>edifice of scientific method.
When you come up with a method of information processing that handles the
entire range of issues that AI researchers are interested in, rather than your
narrow little band, be sure to publish it, and I'm sure it will be widely read
and appreciated.
--
<J Q B>
Jim Balter
In article <851044...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Behaviour is fragmentary. Sometimes this becomes quite apparent
>to us, and we learn from it. Most find it too much to cope
>with and try to explain it away in the interests of a more
>favourable self-image.
The difference between "explain" and "explain away" is a nefarious one.
--
<J Q B>
Jim Balter
In article <851045...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> BUT THAT HUMAN FALLIBILITY IS AT THE BASIS OF MY WHOLE ARGUMENT
The same human fallibility explains your faulty reasoning that leads you from
the correct claim of human fallibility to several false conclusions.
>I don't know about "deeply", but you seem to have a more
>fundamental problem in that you can't even read what's right in
>front of your eyes.
That claim is another demonstration of the depth of your problem.
--
<J Q B>
David Longley
>
> I pointed out many moons ago that Pat Hayes' work on formalizing
> commonsense knowledge, e.g. in the Naive Physics Manifesto, is
> in 100% pure unadulterated extensional FOPC. It is as free of
> intension as any Quinean would like.
>
Just to make the point 100% clear. There is nothing to stop
anyone putting ANYTHING into the notation of the FOPC so long as
they are not concerned about the validity of what they then go on
to infer. It should be clear that one could put "Oedipus wanted
to marry Jocasta" into FOPC as one might put "Jocasta was
Oedipus' mother. It just wouldn't be valid to *use* the FOPC (ie
conditional and quantifier) to *infer* that Oedipus wanted to
marry his mother (at least not if we are talking about his
beliefs and desires).
Folk physics is crypto-intensional.
It is clear that neither McCarthy nor Hayes had considered the
problem of intensional contexts until recently (at least for
McCarthy). In fact, it probably ONLY strikes home with the force
that it should when you become aware of the enormous measurement
problems which face psychology along with the logical
contradictions one finds within folk psychology, the context
specificity of memory etc., and much more that I've drawn
together in the text of:
"Fragments of Behaviour: The Extensional Stance":
http://www.uni-hamburg.de/~kriminol/TS/tskr.htm
in support of a reliable science of behaviour in "corrections"
based on AI.
--
David Longley
David Longley
In article <jqbE2o...@netcom.com> j...@netcom.com "Jim Balter" writes:
> In article <851007...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
> David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >In article <Pine.GSO.3.95L.96121...@unixs6.cis.pitt.edu>
> > cdjo...@pitt.edu "CDJ" writes:
> >
> >> (4) Longley's Rule: On pain of being a rhetorical trickster, one is not
> >> permitted to discuss someone after having read and discussed others who
> >> are relevant to that person.
> >>
> >> CDJ
> >>
> >
> >I post what I have to say here.
>
> Perhaps the nefarious Longley could explain how that is relevant to charging
> that CDJ is a rhetorical trickster for having read Russell. And if I have
> misunderstood him, perhaps he could explain what he meant without indulging in
> nefarious ad hominems.
> --
> <J Q B>
>
These bizarre and imaginative "inferences" are examples of
precisely what I have been highlighting as the ill begot produce
of the propositional attitudes and other intensional idioms.
cf. 'said that'..
--
David Longley
Anders N Weinstein
In article <851075...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <596q70$e...@usenet.srv.cis.pitt.edu>
> ande...@pitt.edu "Anders N Weinstein" writes:
>
>> I pointed out many moons ago that Pat Hayes' work on formalizing
>> commonsense knowledge, e.g. in the Naive Physics Manifesto, is
>> in 100% pure unadulterated extensional FOPC. It is as free of
>> intension as any Quinean would like.
>
>Just to make the point 100% clear. There is nothing to stop
>anyone putting ANYTHING into the notation of the FOPC so long as
>they are not concerned about the validity of what they then go on
>to infer. It should be clear that one could put "Oedipus wanted
>to marry Jocasta" into FOPC as one might put "Jocasta was
>Oedipus' mother. It just wouldn't be valid to *use* the FOPC (ie
>conditional and quantifier) to *infer* that Oedipus wanted to
>marry his mother (at least not if we are talking about his
>beliefs and desires).
The point is: there are certain inferences we pre-analytically accept or
reject, that is, prior to regimentation. For reasonings involving belief,
these appear to include rejecting Leibniz law (although on a
Fregean approach even this is only an appearance).
But you have not displayed *any* such inferences for naive physics.
Therefore you have *no* argument that everyday physics is not extensional-1.
Why couldn't everyday physics simply be extensional but false? There
are plenty of theories even in the exact sciences that are formulable
in an extensional logic but, as it happens, false.
>Folk physics is crypto-intensional.
Again, this is *completely* without foundation and reveals your
confusion.
If you can display an intensional-1 context for everyday physics, I
will retract. But you have not done so. So there is no demonstration,
not even of an informal kind, that folk physics demands a
non-extensional-1 logic.
Jim Balter
In article <851090...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <jqbE2o...@netcom.com> j...@netcom.com "Jim Balter" writes:
>
>> David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> >In article <Pine.GSO.3.95L.96121...@unixs6.cis.pitt.edu>
>> > cdjo...@pitt.edu "CDJ" writes:
>> >
>> >> (4) Longley's Rule: On pain of being a rhetorical trickster, one is not
>> >> permitted to discuss someone after having read and discussed others who
>> >> are relevant to that person.
>> >>
>> >> CDJ
>> >>
>> >
>> >I post what I have to say here.
>>
>> Perhaps the nefarious Longley could explain how that is relevant to charging
>> that CDJ is a rhetorical trickster for having read Russell. And if I have
>> misunderstood him, perhaps he could explain what he meant without indulging in
>> nefarious ad hominems.
>> --
>> <J Q B>
>>
>
>These bizarre and imaginative "inferences" are examples of
>precisely what I have been highlighting as the ill begot produce
>of the propositional attitudes and other intensional idioms.
Longley should review Quine's enumeration of nefarious behaviors.
>cf. 'said that'..
Apparently there is even an injunction against Longley explaining
"I said that ...". In fact, the injunction seems to be against
explanation, period.
--
<J Q B>
David Longley
In article <jqbE2o...@netcom.com> j...@netcom.com "Jim Balter" writes:
> In article <851043...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
>
> >I'm not interested in the sort of "exchange" you have to offer.
> >What I am looking for is further empirical research evidence.
>
> To only be interested in what one hopes to find is nefarious.
That's the nature of science - serendipidy is grossly overrated
and exaggerated as a route to knowledge.
>
> >You need an education in this area Balter, as do some of the
> >other members of your merry band of self appointed "critics".
>
> Nefarious ad hominem.
>
No....it's free education.
> >> Sounds like Hubey. A argument is needed here, not just opinionated
> >> handwaving.
> >>
> >
> >The arguments are in the references: Go and read them
>
> A bibliography is not an argument. But if it were, my refutation
> is logical thought. Go master it.
But unless you know the literature, how do you know whether your
logical "thought" is apposite rather than irrelevant and trite?.
I'm suggesting your read the material I have provided because in
doing so you could save yourself a lot of time and effort.
>
> >My general conclusion is that *many* psychologists have in
fact
> >misread what their discipline has all been about since the 1960s.
> >
> >As an empirical discipline, and in contrast to the technology of
> >AI, it is a catalogue of the failings of a system (*human*
> >information processing) optimised for fault tolerance
> >biologically, but minimally rational without the support of the
> >edifice of scientific method.
>
> When you come up with a method of information processing that handles the
> entire range of issues that AI researchers are interested in, rather than your
> narrow little band, be sure to publish it, and I'm sure it will be widely read
> and appreciated.
Databases, 4GLs, Descriptive Statistics - what more do they need?
Alas, the days when major changes to how research is pursued as a
consequence of what someone WRITES, have, I fear, long gone. The
publication race now has a raison d'etre known only to itself..
With any luck, *defence* will continue to recede as the ONLY
source of serious technological investment, and perhaps
"Corrections" (which I understand gets more funding than
education in the USA) will start to get some serious attention.
--
David Longley
David Longley
Sorities And Intensional Mudddles: Properties vs Relations
I thought it might help if I illustrated some of my recent claims
about how some folk in this group have come (albeit without
appropriate acknowledgement) to slowly if unclearly, appreciate
some of the points that I have been pressing home over the past
18 months. The significance of what I have been trying to get
folk here to appreciate is far more important than the petty
squabbling might lead some to believe.
I had a long exchange with Sloman over these issues this time
last year, and it was clear there, as it is still clear with
Balter and Rickert, that the extent to which intension permeates
"folk psychology" and the extent to which this characterises the
way in which cognitivists of all persuasion implicitly operate,
just is not understood.
What these folk have to learn is to read what Bruner said (and
inaugurated) not as a positive scientific resolution, but as an
unintended ironic remark on the nature of heuristic based folk-
psychology:
'The most characteristic thing about mental life, over
and beyond the fact that one apprehends the events of
the world around one, is that one constantly goes beyond
the information given'.
J Bruner (1957)
Going Beyond The Information Given
(in H Gulber and others (eds)
Contemporary Approaches to Cognition)
Looking back over the past month, one can find plenty to
substantiate my remark that the point is slowly filtering
through, but that those to whom it is filtering through to, just
don't have enough familiarity with the relevant research
literature in empirical psychology to appreciate what I have
outlined in "Fragments of Behaviour: The Extensional Stance".
The following folk only have a context specific, (fragmentary)
understanding of what they are saying. Reading the following in
conjunction with many of their other remarks here on the net, one
can't help but remark on the irony.
'Of course, what we have here is our old friend, the intensional;
the extensions of "rich" and "small" are undetermined.
And sorites arguments are just the sort of operations that cannot
be applied in intensional contexts.'
J. Balter
'I don't think "informal vs. formal" or "natural vs. artificial"
quite get at the problem, as opposed to "intensional vs. extensional."'
J Balter
As I have oft repeated:
'..the meaning of words are abstractions from the truth
conditions of sentences that contain them.'
W.V.O. Quine (1981)
The Five Milestones of Empiricism: Theories and Things p.69
It is this *abstraction* from concrete examples which causes the
trouble. Like TRUTH, our concept of INTENtION is, I suspect,
problematic because it is an abstraction from conditions which
otherwise have an entirely behavioural/physical explication. Like
other intenSional notions, it comes about because we reify a
property, ie we take a set of relations and treat it as a zero
order predicate such as TRUTH, INTENtION... etc.
Terms like "small" and "rich" are but zero order abstractions of
*relations* ("smaller than", "richer than" - and as I have
pointed out elsewhere (with the help of Quine, 'properties' are
indeed intensional, and as such prone to lead to all sorts of
metaphysical abuse, or, in the hands of those above, just
*abuse*, since they are, despite their attempts to make out to
the contrary, still lost in the quagmire of "folk-psychology" and
all of its attributive idioms.
In my view, it was the new logic of Frege which gave the logical
empiricists their greatest tool in their fight against
metaphysics:
'The new logic is distinguished from the old not only by the
form in which it is presented but chiefly also by the
increase of its range....The only form of statements
(sentences) in the old logic was the predicative form:
"Socrates is a man," "All (or some) Greeks are men." A
predicate-concept or property is attributed to a subject-
concept. Leibniz had already put forward the demand that
logic should consider sentences of relational form. In a
relational sentence such as, for example, "a is greater than
b," a relation is attributed to two or more objects, (or, as
it might be put, to several subject-concepts). Liebniz's idea
of a theory of relations has been worked out in the new
logic. The old logic conceived relational sentences as
sentences of predicative form. However, many inferences
involving relational sentences thereby become impossible. To
be sure, one can interpret the sentence "a is greater than b"
in such a way that the predicate "greater than b" is
attributed to the subject a. But the predicate then becomes a
unity; one cannot extract b by any rule of inference.
Consequently, the sentence "b is smaller than a" cannot be
inferred from this sentence. In the new logic, this inference
takes place in the following way: The relation "smaller than"
is defined as the "converse" of the relation "greater than."
The inference in question then rests on the universal
proposition: If a relation holds between x and y, its
converse holds between y and x. A further example of a
statement that cannot be proved in the old logic: "Wherever
there is a victor someone is vanquished." In the new logic,
this follows from the logical proposition: If a relation has
a referent, it also has a relatum. Relational statements are
especially indispensable for the mathematical sciences. Let
us consider as an example the geometrical concept of the
three-place relation "between" (on an open straight line).
The geometrical axioms "If a lies between b and c, b does not
lie between c and a" can be expressed only in the new logic.
According to the predicative view, in the first case we would
have the predicates "lying between b and c" and "lying
between c and a". If these are left unanalyzed, there is no
way of showing how the first is transformed into the second.
If one takes the objects b and c out of the predicate, the
statement "a lies between b and c" no longer serves to
characterise only one object, but three. It is therefore a
three-place relational statement....
Restriction to predicate-sentences has had disastrous effects
on subjects outside logic. Perhaps Russell is right when he
made this logical failing responsible for certain
metaphysical errors.....Above all, we may well assume that
this logical error is responsible for the concept of absolute
space. Because the fundamental form of a proposition had to
be predicative, it could only consist in the specification of
the position of a body. Since Leibniz had recognized the
possibility of relational sentences, he was able to arrive at
a correct conception of space: the elementary fact is not
position of a body but its positional relations relative to
other bodies. He upheld the view on epistemological grounds:
there is no way of determining the absolute position of a
body, but only its positional relations. His campaign in
favor of the relativistic view of space, as against the
absolutistic views of the followers of Newton, had as little
success as his program for logic.
Only after two hundred years were his ideas on both subjects
taken up and carried through: in logic with the theory of
relations (De Morgan 1858; Pierce 1870), in physics with the
theory of relativity (anticipatory ideas in Mach 1883;
Einstein 1905).'
R. Carnap
The Old and the New Logic (1930)
In A.J. Ayer (ed) Logical Positivism (1959)
Relations are what's important, not (intensional) properties:
'If it makes sense to speak of properties, it should
make clear sense to speak of sameness and differences of
properties; but it does not. If a thing has this
property and not that, then certainly this property and
that are different properties. But what if everything
that has this property has that one as well, and vice
versa? Should we say that they are the same property? If
so, well and good; no problem. But people do not take
that line. I am told that every creature with a heart
has kidneys, and vice versa; but who will say that the
property of having a heart is the same as that of having
kidneys?
In short, coextensiveness of properties is not seen as
sufficient for their identity. What then is? If an
answer is given, it is apt to be that they are identical
if they do not just happen to be coextensive, but are
necessarily coextensive. But NECESSITY, q.v., is too
hazy a notion to rest with.
We have been able to go on blithely all these years
without making sense of identity between properties,
simply because the utility of the notion of property
does not hinge on identifying or distinguishing them.
That being the case, why not clean up our act by just
declaring coextensive properties identical? Only because
it would be a disturbing breach of usage, as seen in the
case of the heart and kidneys. To ease that shock, we
change the word; we speak no longer of properties, but
of CLASSES......
We must acquiesce in ordinary language for ordinary
purposes, and the word 'property' is of a piece with it.
But also the notion of property or its reasonable
facsimile that takes over, since these contexts never
hinge on distinguishing coextensive properties. One
instance among many of the use of classes in mathematics
is seen under DEFINITION, in the definition of number.
For science it is classes SI, properties NO.'
W. V. O. Quine (1987)
Classes versus Properties
QUIDDITIES:
It has been argued quite convincingly by Quine (1956,1960) that the
scope and language of science is entirely extensional, that the
intensional is purely attributive, instrumental or creative, and that
there can not be a universal language of thought or 'mentalese', since
such a system would presume determinate translation relations.
Different languages are different systems of behaviour which may
achieve similar ends, but they do not support direct, determinate
translation relations. This is Quine's (1960) 'Indeterminacy of
Translation Thesis'. Despite its import, we frequently behave 'as if'
it is legitimate to directly translate (substitute), and we do this
not only within our own language as illustrated below, but within our
own thinking and language.
This profound point of mathematical logic can be made very clear with
a simple, but representative example. The sub-set of intensional
idioms with which we are most concerned in our day to day dealings
with people are the so called 'propositional attitudes' (saying that,
remembering that, believing that, knowing that, hoping that and so
on). If we report that someone 'said that' he hated his father, it is
often the case that we do not report what is articulated verbatim, ie
precisely, what was said. Instead, we frequently 'approximate' the
'meaning' of what was said and consider this legitimate on the grounds
that the 'meaning' is preserved.
Unfortunately, this assumes that, in contexts of propositional
attitude ('says that', 'thinks that', 'believes that', and, quite
pertinently, 'knows that' etc.) we are free to substitute terms or
phrases which are otherwise co-referential as we can extensionally
with 7+3 = 10 and 5+5=10. That is, it assumes that inference within
intensional contexts is valid. Yet nobody would report that if Oedipus
said that he wanted to marry Jocasta that he said that he wanted to
marry his mother! The problem with intensional idioms is that they can
not be substituted for one another and still preserve the truth
functionality of the contexts within which they occur. In fact, they
can only be directly quoted verbatim, ie as behaviours. Now
substitutivity of co-referential identicals 'salva veritate'
(Leibniz's Law) is in fact a basic extensional axiom of first order
logic, and is a law which underpins all valid inference. One of the
objectives of this paper is therefore to specify in practical detail
how in fact we propose to develop a system for inmate reporting which
does not flout Leibniz's Law, but takes it as central. This is an
inversion of current practices in significant areas of the work of
applied psychologists, and whilst the example cited above is a simple
one, it is nevertheless highly representative of much of the
problematic work of practising psychologists, who, often ignorant of
the above constraint on dealing with the problems which logicians have
identified with the intensional, are, as a consequence, therefore more
often 'creative' in their dealings with inmates and in their report
writing, than is often appreciated, even though the 'Puzzle About
Belief' and modal contexts is well documented (Church 1954, Kripke
1979).
Dretske (1980) put the issue as follows:
'If I know that the train is moving and you know that
its wheels are turning, it does not follow that I know
what you know just because the train never moves without
its wheels turning. More generally, if all (and only) Fs
are G, one can nonetheless know that something is F
without knowing that it is G. Extensionally equivalent
expressions, when applied to the same object, do not
(necessarily) express the same cognitive content.
Furthermore, if Tom is my uncle, one can not infer (with
a possible exception to be mentioned later) that if S
knows that Tom is getting married, he thereby knows that
my uncle is getting married. The content of a cognitive
state, and hence the cognitive state itself, depends
(for its identity) on something beyond the extension or
reference of the terms we use to express the content. I
shall say, therefore, that a description of a cognitive
state, is non-extensional.'
F. I. Dretske (1980)
The Intentionality of Cognitive States
Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5,281-294
For the discipline of psychology, the above logical analyses can be
taken either as a vindication of 20th century behaviourism/physicalism
(Quine 1960,1990,1992) or as a knockout blow to 20th century
'Cognitivism' and psychologism (methodological solipsism).
'One may accept the Brentano thesis as showing the
indispensability of intentional idioms and the
importance of an autonomous science of intention, or as
showing the baselessness of intentional idioms and the
emptiness of a science of intention. My attitude, unlike
Brentano's, is the second. To accept intentional usage
at face value is, we saw, to postulate translation
relations as somehow objectively valid though
indeterminate in principle relative to the totality of
speech dispositions. Such postulation promises little
gain in scientific insight if there is no better ground
for it than that the supposed translation relations are
presupposed by the vernacular of semantics and
intention.'
W. V. O. Quine
The Double Standard
Flight from Intension
Word and Object (1960), p218-221
In response to these mounting problems, Jerry Fodor published an
influential paper in 1980 entitled 'Methodological Solipsism
Considered as a Research Strategy for Cognitive Psychology'. In that
paper he proposed that Cognitive Psychology adopt a stance, or
restricted itself to the explication of the ways that subjects make
sense of the world from their 'own particular point of view'. This was
to be contrasted with the objectives of 'Naturalistic Psychology' or
'Evidential Behaviourism'.
Methodological Solipsism, as opposed to Methodological Behaviourism,
takes 'cognitive processes', mental contents (meanings/propositions)
or 'propositional attitudes' of folk/commonsense psychology at face
value. It accepts that there is a 'Language of Thought' (Fodor 1975),
that there is a universal 'mentalese' which natural languages map
onto, and which express thoughts as 'propositions'. It examines the
apparent causal relations and processes of 'attribution' between these
processes and other psychological processes which have propositional
content. It accepts what is known as the 'formality condition', ie
that thinking is a purely formal, syntactic, computational affair
which therefore has no room for semantic notions such as truth or
falsehood. Such computational processes are therefore indifferent to
whether beliefs are about the world per se (can be said to have a
reference), or are just the views of the belief holder (ie may be
purely imaginary). Technically, this amounts to beliefs not being
subject to 'existential or universal quantification' (where
'existential' refers to the logical quantifier, y 'there exists at
least one', and 'universal' z refers to 'for all').
Methodological Solipsism looks to the *relations* between beliefs 'de
dicto', which are opaque to the holder (he may believe that the
Morning Star is the planet Venus, but not believe that the Evening
Star is the planet Venus, and therefore believe different things of
the Morning and Evening Stars). Methodological Solipsism does not
concern itself with the transparency of beliefs, ie their referential,
or 'de re' status. Some further examples of what all this entails
might be helpful here, since the implications of Methodological
Solipsism are both subtle and far ranging. The critical notions in
what follow are 'transfer of training', 'generalisation decrement',
'inductive vs. deductive inference', and the distinction between
'heuristics' and 'algorithms'.
Here is how Fodor's paper was summarised in abstract:
'Explores the distinction between 2 doctrines, both of
which inform theory construction in much of modern
cognitive psychology: the representational theory of
mind and the computational theory of mind. According to
the former, propositional attitudes are viewed as
relations that organisms bear to mental representations.
According to the latter, mental processes have access
only to formal (nonsemantic) properties of the mental
representations over which they are defined. The
following claims are defended: (1) The traditional
dispute between rational and naturalistic psychology is
plausibly viewed as an argument about the status of the
computational theory of mind. (2) To accept the
formality condition is to endorse a version of
methodological solipsism. (3) The acceptance of some
such condition is warranted, at least for that part of
psychology that concerns itself with theories of the
mental causation of behavior. A glossary and several
commentaries are included.'
J A Fodor (1980)
Methodological solipsism considered as a research
strategy in cognitive psychology.
Massachusetts Inst of Technology
Behavioral and Brain Sciences; 1980 Mar Vol 3(1) 63-109
Some of the commentaries, particularly those by Loar or Rey clarify
what is, admittedly, quite a difficult, but substantial view widely
held by graduate psychologists.
'If psychological explanation is a matter of describing
computational processes, then the references of our
thoughts do not matter to psychological explanation.
This is Fodor's main argument.....Notice that Fodor's
argument can be taken a step further. For not only are
the references of our thoughts not mentioned in
cognitive psychology; nothing that DETERMINES their
references, like Fregian senses, is mentioned
either....Neither reference nor reference-determining
sense have a place in the description of computational
processes.'
B. F. Loar
Ibid p.89
Not all of the commentaries were as formal, as the following
commentary from one of the UK's most eminent logicians makes clear:
'Fodor thinks that when we explain behaviour by mental
causes, these causes would be given "opaque"
descriptions "true in virtue of the way the agent
represents the objects of his wants (intentions,
beliefs, etc.) to HIMSELF" (his emphasis). But what an
agent intends may be widely different from the way he
represents the object of his intention to himself. A man
cannot shuck off the responsibility for killing another
man by just 'directing his intention' at the firing of a
gun:
"I press a trigger - Well, I'm blessed!
he's hit my bullet with his chest!"'
P. Geach
ibid p80
The Methodological Solipsist's stance is clearly at odds with what is
required to function effectively as an APPLIED Criminological
Psychologist if 'functional effectiveness' is taken to refer to
intervention in the behaviour of an inmate with reference to his
environment. Here's how Fodor contrasted Methodological Solipsism with
the naturalistic approach:
'..there's a tradition which argues that - epistemology
to one side - it is at best a strategic mistake to
attempt to develop a psychology which individuates
mental states without reference to their environmental
causes and effects...I have in mind the tradition which
includes the American Naturalists (notably Pierce and
Dewey), all the learning theorists, and such
contemporary representatives as Quine in philosophy and
Gibson in psychology. The recurrent theme here is that
psychology is a branch of biology, hence that one must
view the organism as embedded in a physical environment.
The psychologist's job is to trace those
organism/environment interactions which constitute its
behavior.'
J. Fodor (1980) ibid. p.64
Here is how Stich (1991) reviewed Fodor's position ten years on:
'This argument was part of a larger project. Influenced
by Quine, I have long been suspicious about the
integrity and scientific utility of the commonsense
notions of meaning and intentional content. This is not,
of course, to deny that the intentional idioms of
ordinary discourse have their uses, nor that the uses
are important. But, like Quine, I view ordinary
intentional locutions as projective, context sensitive,
observer relative, and essentially dramatic. They are
not the sorts of locutions we should welcome in serious
scientific discourse. For those who share this Quinean
scepticism, the sudden flourishing of cognitive
psychology in the 1970s posed something of a problem. On
the account offered by Fodor and other observers, the
cognitive psychology of that period was exploiting both
the ontology and the explanatory strategy of commonsense
psychology. It proposed to explain cognition and certain
aspects of behavior by positing beliefs, desires, and
other psychological states with intentional content, and
by couching generalisations about the interactions among
those states in terms of their intentional content. If
this was right, then those of us who would banish talk
of content in scientific settings would be throwing out
the cognitive psychological baby with the intentional
bath water. On my view, however, this account of
cognitive psychology was seriously mistaken. The
cognitive psychology of the 1970s and early 1980s was
not positing contentful intentional states, nor was it
(adverting) to content in its generalisations. Rather, I
maintained, the cognitive psychology of the day was
"really a kind of logical syntax (only psychologized).
Moreover, it seemed to me that there were good reasons
why cognitive psychology not only did not but SHOULD not
traffic in intentional states. One of these reasons was
provided by the Autonomy argument.'
Stephen P. Stich (1991)
Narrow Content meets Fat Syntax
in MEANING IN MIND - Fodor And His Critics
and writing with others in 1991, even more dramatically:
'In the psychological literature there is no dearth of
models for human belief or memory that follow the lead
of commonsense psychology in supposing that
propositional modularity is true. Indeed, until the
emergence of connectionism, just about all psychological
models of propositional memory, except those urged by
behaviorists, were comfortably compatible with
propositional modularity. Typically, these models view a
subject's store of beliefs or memories as an
interconnected collection of functionally discrete,
semantically interpretable states that interact in
systematic ways. Some of these models represent
individual beliefs as sentence like structures - strings
of symbols that can be individually activated by their
transfer from long-term memory to the more limited
memory of a central processing unit. Other models
represent beliefs as a network of labelled nodes and
labelled links through which patterns of activation may
spread. Still other models represent beliefs as sets of
production rules. In all three sorts of models, it is
generally the case that for any given cognitive episode,
like performing a particular inference or answering a
question, some of the memory states will be actively
involved, and others will be dormant......
The thesis we have been defending in this essay is that
connectionist models of a certain sort are incompatible
with the propositional modularity embedded in
commonsense psychology. The connectionist models in
question are those that are offered as models at the
COGNITIVE level, and in which the encoding of
information is widely distributed and subsymbolic. In
such models, we have argued, there are no DISCRETE,
SEMANTICALLY INTERPRETABLE states that play a CAUSAL
ROLE in some cognitive episodes but not others. Thus
there is, in these models, nothing with which the
propositional attitudes of commonsense psychology can
plausibly be identified. If these models turn out to
offer the best accounts of human belief and memory, we
shall be confronting an ONTOLOGICALLY RADICAL theory
change - the sort of theory change that will sustain the
conclusion that propositional attitudes, like caloric
and phlogiston, do not exist.'
W. Ramsey, S. Stich and J. Garon (1991)
Connectionism, eliminativism, and the future of folk
psychology.
The implications here are that progress in applying psychology or AI
will be impeded if its practitioners persist in trying to talk
about, or use psychological (intensional) phenomena within a
framework (evidential behaviourism) which inherently resists
quantification into such terms. Without bound, extensional
predicates, we can not reliably use the predicate calculus, and
without the predicate (functional) calculus we can not formulate
reliable, lawful relationships, statistical or determinate.
(But then again, the intensional is far more fun, at the basis of
comedy and all other forms of art and entertaininment. It's a great
source of surprise and therefore reward - it's just *not* science).
See "Fragments of Behaviour: The Extensional Stance"
http://www.uni-hamburg.de/~kriminol/TS/tskr.htm
--
David Longley
David Longley
In article <59enjp$f...@usenet.srv.cis.pitt.edu>
ande...@pitt.edu "Anders N Weinstein" writes:
> Why couldn't everyday physics simply be extensional but false? There
> are plenty of theories even in the exact sciences that are formulable
> in an extensional logic but, as it happens, false.
>
'The new logic is distinguished from the old not only by the
> >Folk physics is crypto-intensional.
>
> Again, this is *completely* without foundation and reveals your
> confusion.
>
> If you can display an intensional-1 context for everyday physics, I
> will retract. But you have not done so. So there is no demonstration,
> not even of an informal kind, that folk physics demands a
> non-extensional-1 logic.
>
There's no reason why we should not refer to past property based
science as intensional and therefore a domain of folk psychology.
That we refer to it as folk "physics", is just a convenience,
since in most respects it was all "philosophy" or religion.
If you want concrete illustrations, you will have to wait whilst
I collate some material, in the meantime, have a look at
Churchland and Stich. I think my informal account above should
really suffice.
Davidson has something to say on this too of course.
--
David Longley
Neil Rickert
>Sorities And Intensional Mudddles: Properties vs Relations
>I thought it might help if I illustrated some of my recent claims
>about how some folk in this group have come (albeit without
>appropriate acknowledgement) to slowly if unclearly, appreciate
>some of the points that I have been pressing home over the past
>18 months.
Nonsense. The nonsense you have been pushing is still as nonsensical
as it always was.
>I had a long exchange with Sloman over these issues this time
>last year, and it was clear there, as it is still clear with
>Balter and Rickert, that the extent to which intension permeates
>"folk psychology" and the extent to which this characterises the
>way in which cognitivists of all persuasion implicitly operate,
>just is not understood.
What you still do not understand, is that you are far more involved
with the intensional than is either of us. You are also far more
confused.
>What these folk have to learn is to read what Bruner said (and
>inaugurated) not as a positive scientific resolution, but as an
>unintended ironic remark on the nature of heuristic based folk-
>psychology:
> 'The most characteristic thing about mental life, over
> and beyond the fact that one apprehends the events of
> the world around one, is that one constantly goes beyond
> the information given'.
No information is given. Longley would sentence us to a permanent
state of total ignorance, with his objections to going beyond the
zero information that is given.
> 'Of course, what we have here is our old friend, the intensional;
> the extensions of "rich" and "small" are undetermined.
> And sorites arguments are just the sort of operations that cannot
> be applied in intensional contexts.'
> J. Balter
Balter has simply adopted some of your terminology. You should not
conclude that he has accepted any of your ideas. I suspect his
analysis of the sorites paradox is about the same today as it would
have been 10 years ago. The only change is in the specific
terminology he has used.
>As I have oft repeated:
> '..the meaning of words are abstractions from the truth
> conditions of sentences that contain them.'
Frequent repetition does not make it right. You would do better to
use Wittgenstein's "meaning is use."
>It is this *abstraction* from concrete examples which causes the
>trouble. Like TRUTH, our concept of INTENtION is, I suspect,
>problematic
Of course it is problematic. But given how confused you are between
"intension" and "intention", you are hardly the one to point to the
problems.
> Like
>other intenSional notions, it comes about because we reify a
>property, ie we take a set of relations and treat it as a zero
>order predicate such as TRUTH, INTENtION... etc.
Do I take this as a claim that TRUTH is just as problematic as
INTENtION?
>Terms like "small" and "rich" are but zero order abstractions of
>*relations* ("smaller than", "richer than" -
And are these relations innate, or are they in turn abstractions from
something else?
> - and as I have
>pointed out elsewhere (with the help of Quine, 'properties' are
>indeed intensional, and as such prone to lead to all sorts of
>metaphysical abuse,
Then I guess we should discard properties such as 'length',
'position', 'velocity', which are at the heart of physics. Perhaps
we should discard physics, in the interest of intensional purity.
>In my view, it was the new logic of Frege which gave the logical
>empiricists their greatest tool in their fight against
>metaphysics:
Who cares what you think (to use an expression you have often aimed
at me).
>It has been argued quite convincingly by Quine (1956,1960) that the
>scope and language of science is entirely extensional,
Yet the language of science is full of talk about properties, which
you have just declared to be entirely intensional.
Your confusion is altogether too obvious.
David Longley
> In <851163...@longley.demon.co.uk> Da...@longley.demon.co.uk (David Longley)
> writes:
>
> >Sorities And Intensional Mudddles: Properties vs Relations
>
> >I thought it might help if I illustrated some of my recent claims
> >about how some folk in this group have come (albeit without
> >appropriate acknowledgement) to slowly if unclearly, appreciate
> >some of the points that I have been pressing home over the past
> >18 months.
>
> Nonsense. The nonsense you have been pushing is still as nonsensical
> as it always was.
The fact that you don't understand very much of it does not make
it nonsense, just not comprehended by you.
>
> Balter has simply adopted some of your terminology. You should not
> conclude that he has accepted any of your ideas. I suspect his
> analysis of the sorites paradox is about the same today as it would
> have been 10 years ago. The only change is in the specific
> terminology he has used.
If I thought it worthwhile, I'd quote Balter from several weeks
back where he asserted he basically agreed with much that I say.
I just don't think it's worthwhile (except to refute the above).
>
> > - and as I have
> >pointed out elsewhere (with the help of Quine, 'properties' are
> >indeed intensional, and as such prone to lead to all sorts of
> >metaphysical abuse,
>
> Then I guess we should discard properties such as 'length',
> 'position', 'velocity', which are at the heart of physics. Perhaps
> we should discard physics, in the interest of intensional purity.
No, the idea is to replace *intensional* idioms.
>
> >In my view, it was the new logic of Frege which gave the logical
> >empiricists their greatest tool in their fight against
> >metaphysics:
>
> Who cares what you think (to use an expression you have often aimed
> at me).
If what I have to say is consistent with history, *you* should
care.
--
David Longley
Jim Balter
In article <851380...@longley.demon.co.uk>,
David Longley <Da...@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <59h58o$4...@ux.cs.niu.edu> ric...@cs.niu.edu "Neil Rickert" writes:
>> Balter has simply adopted some of your terminology. You should not
>> conclude that he has accepted any of your ideas. I suspect his
>> analysis of the sorites paradox is about the same today as it would
>> have been 10 years ago. The only change is in the specific
>> terminology he has used.
>
>If I thought it worthwhile, I'd quote Balter from several weeks
>back where he asserted he basically agreed with much that I say.
>I just don't think it's worthwhile (except to refute the above).
But that does not refute Neil. "Much" is not synonymous with "all" or even
"most", oh illogical one. I agree with much of what David Chalmers writes in
_The Conscious Mind_, yet I am in fundamental disagreement with him. The
points where I agree, for the most part I agreed before I read his book; it
would not be proper to say that I have "accepted" his ideas. Your theme here
has been people coming to agree, in a fragmented way, with your views. This
appears to be based on the same sort of erroneous Manichean logic that you use
to "refute" Neil here.
[insert nefarious response from Longley here]
--
<J Q B>
David Longley
In article <jqbE2x...@netcom.com> j...@netcom.com "Jim Balter"
writes:
My "theme" in this thread has been that the sorities are a
consequence of misusing relations as properties.
--
David Longley
Dirk Bellemans
>My "theme" in this thread has been that the sorities are a
>consequence of misusing relations as properties.
>--
>David Longley
>
interesting thing, but what is the sorities all
about, actually?
Dirk Bellemans, native language: Dutch.
Only e-mail regarding the matters discussed please.
I reject any connotation attached to what I stated above.
Besides, this is a Usenet-posting, not my Testament.