3.8—
The Conceptual Dependence Objection

While I rather expect that something on the order of causal dependence was what Searle and Sayre had in mind when they spoke of "derived intentionality," there is another way of interpreting the expression 'derived intentionality' which may damage CTM in a more fundamental manner. On the causal construal of Searle's expression 'derived intentionality', the term 'intentionality' could be predicated univocally of both mental states and symbols. The difference between cognitive states and symbols lay in how they came to have this one property. This is probably what Searle had in mind in his discussion of derived intentionality. But one might read the expression 'derived intentionality' in quite another way. One might read it as meaning "intentionality in a derivative sense ." On this reading, attributions of intentional and semantic properties to cognitive states and attributions of intentional and semantic properties to symbols are not attributions of the same properties .

3.8.1—
The Homonymy of 'Healthy': An Aristotelian Paradigm

In setting up the problem, it may be helpful briefly to recall Aristotle's discussion of homonymy. Aristotle points out that some words, such as 'healthy', are used in different ways when they are applied to different kinds of objects. We say that there are healthy people, healthy food, healthy exercise, healthy complexions, and so on. But when we say that some kind of food is healthy, we are not predicating the same thing of the food that we are predicating of a person when we say that he is healthy. If I say that fish is a healthy food, I mean that eating fish is conducive to health in humans. But if I say that Jones is healthy, I mean that he is in good health .^[5] (Individual fish can be healthy in the same sense that Jones is healthy, but they have ceased from being in good health by the time they are healthy food for Jones.) Yet words like 'healthy', according to Aristotle, are not merely homonymous. Rather, there is one meaning which is primary or focal, and the other meanings are all to be understood in terms of how they relate to the primary meaning. In the case of 'healthy', the primary meaning is the one that applies to people (or, more generally, to living bodies): to be healthy in the primary sense is to be in good health. Things other than living beings are said to be "healthy" in other senses because of the way that they relate to being in good health: for example, because of the way they contribute to being in good health (e.g., a healthy diet or

regimen), or because of the way they indicate good health (e.g., a healthy complexion). Aristotle calls this kind of homonymy paronymy or "homonymy pros hen ." The sense of 'healthy' that applies to food is dependent upon, and indeed points to the sense of 'health' that applies to bodies. "Healthy food" means "food that is conducive to bodily health." And similarly the senses of 'healthy' that apply to exercise, appearance, and so on point to the notion of bodily health. As a result, questions about the "healthiness" of a particular food amount to questions about how it contributes to bodily health . Someone who thought that bodily health was derived from the "health" contained in the food one ate would simply be mistaken about how the word 'health' is used. And it would betray conceptual confusion if one were to say, "I don't want to know how broccoli contributes to bodily health, I just want to know why it is healthy ."

Of course, someone could use the word 'healthy' in some new manner. For example, someone convinced that vitamins were the source of bodily health might start applying the word 'healthy' in a way that just meant "full of vitamins." This use of the word 'healthy' (to be indicated 'healthy_v ') would no longer be conceptually dependent upon the notion of bodily health. But 'healthy_v ' would not mean what 'healthy' is normally understood to mean either. In particular, one could not draw upon any implications of the normal use of the word 'healthy' in reasoning about things that are healthy_v . For example, presumably things are healthy_v in proportion to the number and quantity of vitamins present in them. A meal with ten thousand times the recommended daily allowance of all vitamins would be very healthy_v . But one cannot infer from this that such a meal would be healthy (conducive to health). First, since 'healthy_v ' no longer bears a semantic connection to the notion of bodily health, the analytically based inference does not go through. Second, the conclusion happens to be empirically false. Massive doses of some vitamins are not conducive to health, but toxic. Old words can be given completely new meanings, but then what you have is homonymy plain and simple. And not all of the things that may be said of things that can be said to be healthy can also be said of things that are healthy_v .

3.8.2—
"Derived Intentionality" as the Homonymy of 'Intentional'

Now one could interpret the expression 'derived intentionality' as pointing to a conceptual dependence between different uses of words such as 'intentional', 'intentionality', 'meaningful', 'referential'—in short, of all

words used in attributing intentional and semantic properties. And the nature of the dependence would be along the following lines: both symbols and mental states are said to be intentional, meaningful, referential, and so on. But words such as 'intentional' and 'meaningful' are not used in the same way when they are said of symbols as when they are said of mental states. Intentional and semantic terms are homonymous. But they are not merely homonymous. Rather, it is a case of paronymy, or homonymy pros hen, where there is a primary or focal sense of each term: specifically, the sense that is applied to cognitive states. The sense that is applied to symbols is "derivative" or conceptually dependent because it refers back to the sense that is applied to cognitive states. For example, when we say that a speech act is intentional, what we mean is that it is an expression olean intentional state . On this view, there would be no sense in which a speech act could be said to be intentional that did not point to an intentional state in similar fashion.

Now I believe that a view of this sort is implicit in some of the things written by Sayre and Searle, but I do not see that it is ever explicitly articulated in this form, or marshaled as an explicit objection to CTM.^[6] Searle's analysis, moreover, is confined almost exclusively to illocutionary acts, and is not developed more generally for symbols . Since CTM does not posit that mental representations are illocutionary acts, Searle's analysis would at very least have to be broadened if it is to provide a criticism of CTM. It is quite possible, however, that Searle has in mind something like this notion of conceptual dependency of symbolic intentionality and meaning when he blames the inadequacies of CTM upon the fact that the "meaningfulness" and "intentionality" of symbols in computers is "dependent" upon the intentions of users and programmers.

Sayre's analysis of the shortcomings of CTM might also be read as relying upon the premise that the kind of intentionality that symbols may be said to have is conceptually dependent upon the kind of intentionality that cognitive states may be said to have. Sayre places more stress than does Searle upon the role that computer users and programmers play in imbuing symbols in computers with meaning and intentionality. He writes, for example, that

none of the representations internal to the machine has meaning, or truth, or external reference, just in and by itself. Whatever meaning, truth, or reference they have is derivative . . . tracing back to interpretations imposed by programmers and users of the system. . . .

. . . My point is that computers, just in and by themselves, no matter how programmed, do not exhibit intentionality at all. (Sayre 1986: 123, 124)

If assertions which appear to be just about the meaningfulness of symbols in computers turn out to be (covert) assertions about the actions and intentions of computer users and programmers, then the computer paradigm does involve symbols with "intentional" and "semantic" properties, but only in the sense that it involves a  human-computer system in which the humans impute semantic and intentional properties to the symbols in the computer. If this be the case, there may well be problems about extending the model to account for intentionality in humans.

Unlike Searle, Sayre also touches more broadly upon the semantic features of symbols in general. In discussing the semantic properties of symbols in a natural language, he stresses the point that natural language symbols have semantic properties only because of interpretive conventions:

Inasmuch as the English word "cat" refers to cats, the word consists of more than can be uttered or written on paper. It consists of the symbolic form CAT (which can be instantiated in many ways in speech and writing) plus interpretive conventions by which instances of that form are to be taken as referring to cats . Similarly, the symbolic form Go means the opposite of STOP (or COME , etc.) by appropriate interpretive conventions of English, while by those of Japanese it means a board game played with black and white stones. But without interpretive conventions it means nothing at all . (Sayre 1986: 123, emphasis added)

If this passage is read with the notion of conceptual dependence in mind, it is extremely suggestive. If talk about the meaningfulness of symbols is necessarily (covertly) talk about linguistic conventions, then the meaningfulness of symbols is conceptually dependent upon conventions. And if this is the case, CTM may be in very serious trouble indeed.

3.8.3—
The Potential of a "Conceptual Dependence Objection"

While Searle's and Sayre's criticisms of CTM may well include the kernel of a "Conceptual Dependence Objection," no full-scale development of such an objection has yet been offered. Developing such an objection will, among other things, involve a careful examination of the notion of symbol and the ways that symbols of various sorts may be said to have semantic and intentional properties. Such an analysis will be undertaken in chapter 4.

But even prior to such an analysis, it is possible to see, in general terms, what force such an objection would have. CTM's representational

account of cognitive states consists primarily in the claim that these involve symbolic representations which have semantic properties. If the Conceptual Dependence Objection can be made to stick, however, all attributions of semantic and intentional properties to symbols refer to something more than the symbol: they refer to the beings who are responsible for the symbol's having an interpretation. This would present two kinds of problems for CTM. First, like the Causal Derivation Objection, it calls the credibility of the computer paradigm into question: it just seems incredible to postulate that there is some being (or beings) responsible for interpreting mental symbols. But there is also a more fundamental problem: if all attributions of symbolic meaning are (covertly) attributions of the imposition of meaning, then attributions of intentional and symbolic properties to any symbol would have to involve attributions of intentional states of some agent or agents responsible for the imposition of meaning upon that symbol. And this would seem to involve CTM in regress and circularity: CTM explains the intentionality and semantics of cognitive states in terms of the intentionality and semantics of symbols. But if the intentionality and semantics of symbols are, in turn, cashed out in terms of cognitive states, there is circularity in the interexplanation of cognitive states and symbols, and a regress of cognitive states responsible for the intentionality and semantics of other cognitive states. Such an objection would be far more damaging than the Causal Derivation Objection.