3.2—
Three Implicit Criticisms

The basic thread of criticism common to Searle and Sayre is clear enough: symbolic representation in computers does not provide a fit model for the intentionality of mental states. But if the general lines of the criticism are plain enough, the exact details are a bit more difficult. On the one hand, there seems to be some suggestion that the problem lies specifically with symbols in computers, to the effect that these symbols (unlike other symbols) are not meaningful at all, and hence are poor candidates for explaining the meaningfulness of mental states. On the other hand, other passages suggest a more general problem about the very nature of symbolic meaning—namely, that the semantic properties of symbols, even symbols in computers, are somehow "derived" from the meaningbestowing acts and conventions of symbol users, and that this somehow imperils the possibility of accounting for the meaningfulness of mental states in terms of the meaningfulness of symbols. I shall argue, moreover, that there are in fact two different senses in which symbolic meaning might be said to be "derivative," each of which can serve as the basis of an attack upon CTM. In the following sections, I shall discuss each of these variations upon Searle's and Sayre's texts in turn. My concern here will, moreover, be with analysis of the different lines of argument rather than with questions of exegesis.