6.3—
The Choice of Paradigm Examples

First, let us consider whether I have been arbitrary in my choice of utterances and inscriptions as my paradigm examples of symbolhood and symbolic meaning. In particular, are there in fact other paradigm examples available such that (a ) the words 'symbol' and '(symbolic) meaning' are predicated of those examples in the same sense in which they are predicated of utterances and inscriptions, and (b ) there is no covert reference to conventionality or mental states when these words are used of the alternative paradigms?

Now in a certain way, I find this a very odd objection. It is not as though we were overrun with things we call "symbols" that jump out as alternative paradigms. It is true that the words 'symbol' and '(symbolic) meaning' are said of other sorts of objects. In what follows, however, I shall argue that all of these usages are either (a ) homonymous and express different properties from those expressed by the same words when they are applied to utterances and inscriptions, or (b ) contentious in ways that render illicit their use as alternative paradigms in the present context.

6.3.1—
Some Existing Uses of 'Symbol' and 'Meaning'

First, there are clearly some alternative uses of the words 'symbol' and 'meaning' in ordinary English and existing usage in the sciences. Jung, for example, wrote a book entitled Man and His Symbols, in which the word 'symbol' is applied to things other than utterances and inscriptions. There seems to be a similar and related usage in cultural anthropology, which is interested, among other things, in the "symbols" employed by a culture—meaning not their linguistic tokens, but the way they express themes and mythic forms. However, it seems very unlikely that the fact that linguistic tokens and Jungian archetypes might both be called "symbols" indicates that there is a property (being-a-symbol) that is common to both sets of objects. It seems more likely that the word is homonymous and expresses different properties in the two cases, the existence of a common word being a function of family resemblance or analogy rather than property sharing.

Similarly, the word 'meaning' and its variants has some different or-

dinary uses. We say, for example, that dark clouds "mean rain," and that what some human beings long for most is a "meaningful relationship" with another human being. But here again it seems wrongheaded to assume that the word 'meaning' expresses the same property when applied to utterances, clouds, and relationships. Even in the case of theorists who speak of "natural meaning" or "natural signs" (e.g., Grice 1957)—and it is almost never "natural symbols "—it seems clear that the words 'meaning' and 'sign' (or, at a stretch, 'symbol') are used here precisely to express the relation that is sometimes called "indication" (see Dretske 1981, 1988), and not to express the same property that is predicated of utterances and inscriptions. To be sure, some writers (notably Dretske 1981, 1988) have tried to make a case that the kind of "meaning" that accrues to language (i.e., the usage of the word 'meaning' that is applied to linguistic tokens) can ultimately be explained in a fashion that depends heavily upon indication. But their point is not to give an account of what property is expressed by the ordinary usage of 'meaning', but to give an account of how this property arises. Indeed, Dretske (1988: 55-56) explicitly embraces Grice's distinction between two uses ("natural" and "nonnatural") of the word 'meaning'. If an indicator theory should prove adequate as an explanation of linguistic meaning, the status of that theory would be that of an empirical account that explains the presence of the property P expressed by the "nonnatural" sense of 'meaning' in terms of a distinct property Q that is expressed by the "natural" sense, and not an analysis of what property that word is used to express.

Thus these examples are of no help to the critic. First, the Semiotic Analysis in no way claims that the words in the semiotic vocabulary may not be ambiguous in additional ways, or that they cannot be used to express properties other than those mentioned in the analysis. (Who on Earth would want to claim that? ) Second, if the usage of the semiotic vocabulary in CTM is related to the convention-bound usage explicated in the Semiotic Analysis only by way of analogy or family resemblance, this seriously undercuts much of the appeal of CTM. For one thing, if these words express different properties when applied to mental representations, we are entitled to some explanation of what these properties are. For another, what the computer paradigm shows us how to do is to link up causal powers with the semiotic-semantic properties of the symbols. If the salient properties expressed by the words 'symbol' and 'meaning' in CTM express not semiotic-semantic properties but a distinct set of properties, we will need a new assessment of how these properties can be linked up with causal role, and hence we will require a new assess-

ment of the status of the vindication of intentional psychology, which depended so heavily upon the computer paradigm.^[4]

6.3.2—
Mental Representations as a Paradigm

Perhaps, however, one might say that one has an alternative paradigm of nonconventional symbols in mental representation itself. After all, people in cognitive science have been talking about mental representations in their theories for years, and most of them seem pretty clear that they do not mean to be talking about convention-dependent symbols. Ergo we have an alternative paradigm.

This approach, however, is either a case of homonymous usage or else it is question begging. For talk of symbolic representations in the mind is either (a ) an attempt to apply existing usage, fixed by the older paradigms, in a new domain, or else (b ) its relationship to existing usage is merely one of analogy or family resemblance. Fodor at one point seems to recognize this issue, but is rather cavalier in dismissing it. He writes,

It remains an open question whether internal representation . . . is sufficiently like natural language representation so that both can be called representation 'in the same sense'. But I find it hard to care much how this question should be answered. There is an analogy between the two kinds of representation. Since public languages are conventional and the language of thought is not, there is unlikely to be more than an analogy. If you are impressed by the analogy, you will want to say that the inner code is a language. If you are unimpressed by the analogy, you will want to say that the inner code is in some sense a representational system but that it is not a language. (Fodor 1975: 78)

It seems to me that Fodor ought to worry a bit more about his options here. For the notions of "symbol" and "meaning" play an absolutely central role in CTM, and so one should wish to know just what properties these words are supposed to express when applied to Fodor's hypothesized mental representations. If these words express the same properties they express when applied to linguistic tokens, they would seem to require whatever analysis is given to linguistic tokens generally. These turn out to be convention- and thought-dependent, and Searle and Sayre have suggested that this kind of dependence renders these notions unfit for explaining the intentionality of mental states. (This view will be argued in detail in chapter 7.) But if the use of words like 'symbol' and 'meaning' signifies only an analogy with language, one needs to hear what properties these words do express when applied to mental representations, in order to see if these properties are even candidate explainers for

the intentionality of mental states. In the first case, the critic's use of mental representation is contentious and question begging, as the question at hand is one of whether the ordinary usage of 'symbol' and 'meaning' can be applied to some internal states in a fashion that will do what CTM's advocates claim. In the second case, what we have is not an objection to the Semiotic Analysis, but a claim that it is not an analysis of the usage of the semiotic vocabulary employed by CTM's advocates.

6.3.3—
Symbols in Computers

It also might be suggested by some that symbols in computers present a counterexample to the Semiotic Analysis. In light of the discussion in the previous chapter, however, this is clearly a confusion. On the one hand, things in computers that are normally thought of as symbols—for example, representations of numbers or text encoded in the ASCII format—are clearly convention-dependent in exactly the same senses as are utterances and inscriptions. On the other hand, the implicit usage of the words 'symbol' and 'syntax' in writers like Newell and Simon (1975) to denote functionally typed kinds is clearly a distinct (i.e., homonymous) usage of the words 'symbol' and 'syntax'. Things in the computer do not fall into semiotic kinds because they fall out of the functional description of the computer; nor do they fall under the functional description provided by the machine table because they are markers and counters. Rather, the great accomplishment of successful program design is to get the semiotic types to line up with the functional types so that the computer will perform operations that happen to be of interest when interpreted as symbol manipulations. So, far from providing a counterexample to the Semiotic Analysis, computers are only properly understood when that analysis is employed.