The Reason That No Computer Program Can

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.

Where Questions Of Style And Exposition Are Concerned I Try To Follow A Simple Maxim: If You Can't Say It Clearly You Don't Understand It Yourself.

In The Performance Of An Illocutionary Act In The Literal Utterance Of A Sentence, The Speaker Intends To Produce A Certain Effect By Means Of Getting The Hearer To Recognize His Intention To Produce That Effect; And Furthermore, If He Is Using The Words Literally, He Intends This Recognition To Be Achieved In Virtue Of The Fact That The Rules For Using The Expressions He Utters Associate The Expression With The Production Of That Effect.

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."

My Car And My Adding Machine Understand Nothing: They Are Not In That Line Of Business