If You Can't Say It

I Want To Block Some Common Misunderstandings About "understanding": In Many Of These Discussions One Finds A Lot Of Fancy Footwork About The Word "understanding."

Our Tools Are Extensions Of Our Purposes, And So We Find It Natural To Make Metaphorical Attributions Of Intentionality To Them; But I Take It No Philosophical Ice Is Cut By Such Examples.

The Assertion Fallacy Is The Fallacy Of Confusing The Conditions For The Performance Of The Speech Act Of Assertion With The Analysis Of The Meaning Of Particular Words Occurring In Certain Assertions.

It Seems To Me Obvious That Infants And Many Animals That Do Not In Any Ordinary Sense Have A Language Or Perform Speech Acts Nonetheless Have Intentional States. Only Someone In The Grip Of A Philosophical Theory Would Deny That Small Babies Can Literally Be Said To Want Milk And That Dogs Want To Be Let Out Or Believe That Their Master Is At The Door.

Many People Mistakenly Suppose That The Essence Of Consciousness Is That Of A Control Mechanism