why the mind isn't a program (but some digital computer might have a mind)

8/12/2019 Why the Mind Isn't a Program (but Some Digital Computer Might Have a Mind)

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1/5/12 Why The Mind Isn't a Program (But Some Digital Computer Might Have a Mind)

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Why The Mind Isn't a Program (But Some

Digital Computer Might Have a Mind)

Mark Okrent

Bates College

[1] The intellectual world of Martin Heidegger is quite different from the intellectual world inhabited bycontemporary cognitive scientists. Heidegger's fundamental question in Being and Time is concerned with"being." He, of course, knew nothing about computers or neuroscience, and his work displays only themost minimal acquaintance with work in the science of his day. Further, Heidegger's terminology matchesup badly with the terminology of modern cognitive science. Not only doesn't he talk about symbol systems,programs, and Turing machines, he doesn't even talk about anything which could pass for folk psychology.The words "belief," "desire" and "representation" barely appear in Being and Time, where they arereplaced with a vocabulary of "projects" and "understanding," "for the sake of"s and "in order to"s. What

possible significance could the work of Martin Heidegger have for the developing discipline of cognitivescience?

[2] And yet it has become something of an obligation for books in cognitive science to contain at least apassing reference to Heidegger. For example, consider this fairly typical comment concerningconnectionism in Bechtel and Abrahamsen's Connectionism and the Mind : "Thus it provides hope of situating cognitive processing in the world, and so begins to elucidate what Heidegger may have had inmind when he emphasized that our cognitive system exists enmeshed in the world in which we do things,where we have skills and social practices that facilitate our interaction with objects" (Bechtel andAbrahamsen 1991: 126).

[3] This particular quotation points to the explanation for this interest in Heidegger among cognitivescientists. The passage indirectly suggests that Heidegger is relevant to cognitive science insofar as he putsforward a set of constraints which any cognitive system must satisfy if it is to count as similar to our own.Bechtel and Abrahamsen correctly attribute to Heidegger the position that there are three essential featuresof our cognitive system and its relation to its environment. First, Heidegger is said to have emphasized thatour cognitive system "exists enmeshed in the world." Second, it is asserted that Heidegger claimed that the"world" is to be thought of as the field in which we do things, presumably as opposed to primarily thinkingof it as a set of objects. Third, it is claimed that Heidegger thought that our doings, our interactions withobjects within this world, is facilitated by "skills and social practices." Now, if what Heidegger says aboutus and our relation to the world is true, then these three essential facts about us amount to a set of conditionson having a cognitive system similar to ours and any attempt to model that system must reproduce thosefeatures. So, Heidegger is at least relevant to cognitive science insofar as he puts forward a set of constraintswhich must be satisfied by any system which could count as thinking in the same sense we think.

[4] We owe a debt to Hubert Dreyfus for pointing out this potential relevance of Heidegger to cognitivescience. In a long series of publications beginning with What Computers Can't Do, Dreyfus has insisted thaHeidegger's work has profound implications for cognitive science in general and for the pursuit of artificialintelligence in particular. According to Dreyfus,these implications begin with the requirements that anythinking entity must "be-in-the-world," that "the world" in which we are is the context in which significantaction can take place, rather than a set of decontextualized objects, and that our primary way of being-in-the-world is through skillfully coping with it in accordance with a variety of social practices. The





terminology of "skills," "coping," and "social practices" is Dreyfus', not Heidegger's (although the positionsare certainly to be found in Heidegger himself). So Dreyfus' interpretation of Heidegger is the proximatesource of the constraints on our cognitive system listed by Bechtel and Abrahamsen.

[5] But Dreyfus doesn't stop with this list of conditions on being similar to us. Instead, he goes on to arguethat if we understand these conditions properly we will see that it is at least highly unlikely, if not entirelyimpossible, for a digital computer, which manipulates formal symbols in accordance with a set of algorithmsorganized in a program, to ever satisfy those Heideggerean constraints, and thus count as thinking.

[6] In this paper I will concentrate on this further inference which Dreyfus draws from Heidegger's work. Iwill try to show that while Dreyfus is quite correct in thinking that Heidegger provides a set of conditionson what it is to think, and that if Heidegger is right about those conditions no program which provides a setof rules for manipulating formal symbols could specify what it is to satisfy those conditions, he is wrong tothink that there is anything in Heidegger which gives us reason to think that these conditions could or couldnot in fact be satisfied by some digital computer running some program. That is, I will argue that if Heidegger is right, we have reason to believe that no computer program could tell us what it is to think, butthat there is nothing in Heidegger which counts against the possibility that some computer may actuallythink.

[7] So it is central to my thesis that we distinguish two issues. The first issue concerns what Heideggerwould call a "question of being": "What is it to be a thinker?" The second issue concerns a matter of fact:"Which actual entities might count as thinkers?" We can better see that and how these issues are distinct if we distinguish clearly between two questions concerning computers and thought.

Two Questions Concerning Computers and Thought

[8] Let us begin with a very general question: "Is the brain a digital computer and is the mind a computerprogram?"(1) This question, it seems to me, is ambiguous between two different questions. First, in raisingthis question one could be entertaining the possibility that a set of rules for performing manipulations on

formal symbols could in principle explicate what it is for something to have a mind. For the mind to be aprogram would be for the sort of behavior which qualifies one as having a mind to be specifiable asfollowing a set of operations on formal symbols. And for the brain to be a computer would be for a humanbeing to count as having a mind in virtue of the overall activity of her brain being abstractly describable asperforming those operations specified in the program. That is, in this sense the brain counts as a computer iftreated as a black box, it gives the appropriate outputs to the appropriate inputs, where "appropriate" isdefined by some "mental" program. Whether or not there are any physically described things in the brainwhich correspond to the symbols in the program is thus irrelevant to the brain being a computer in thissense. So we might phrase this question as: "Is what it is for an entity to have thoughts expressible as therunning of a program which specifies what the entity does at each point by reference to a set of rulesdefined over formal symbols?" This question essentially concerns what Heidegger would call a question of being, or an ontological question. What is at issue is how to characterize what it is for something to have amind, and the positive suggestion is that for an entity to have a mind is for it to act in accordance with a setof algorithms for manipulating symbols.

[9] Presumably what motivates this possibility is the recognition that some machines running in accordancewith such programs for the manipulation of formal symbols, suitably connected to their environmentsthrough program entry and exit rules, have, in restricted and well defined areas, proved successful atbehaving in ways which seem to require rationality. This success in modeling rationality locally hassuggested the possibility of modeling rationality globally. And if one can program a machine to be rational,this suggests that what it is that the machine is doing which qualifies it as rational is specified by that

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program. Finally, insofar as rationality is considered at least necessary, and perhaps sufficient, for thought,this in turn suggests that if we can describe what constitutes a rational entity we would thereby describewhat constitutes a thinking entity.

[10] One can also take the question of whether the mind is a program in an entirely different direction. Inthis sense, the question concerns what actual digital computers, organized so as to follow a set of formalalgorithms, might be capable of doing. Whereas the first question asks concerning what is meant in sayingthat something thinks, and raises the possibility that "thinking" might be defined in terms of programs

which, when followed, cause rational behavior, this second question raises the issue of whether a computeroperating according to such a program could actually count as thinking. Now, if we conclude in answer tothe first question that to think just is to operate according to some program, then, of course, any machinewhich does so operate also thinks. On the other hand, if we conclude in answer to the first question thatwhat it is to think can not be captured in any program, this leaves the second question open. In order toanswer it we would need to know at least two things. How ought we to understand what it is to think? Andis it possible for a thing which acts in accordance with some program also independently to satisfy whatevernecessary constraints there are on thinking? The answer to the question of whether a computer couldactually think thus turns on the answer to the ontological question. For this reason, Heidegger would havecalled it an "ontic" question, a question about a being rather than about being. (2)

[11] Dreyfus seems to think that Heidegger's work has important consequences for both of these issues, andthat if Heidegger is right it is not only impossible to define thought in terms of programmed behavior butalso impossible that any computer could actually think. And, as I will show, if Heidegger is right regarding"being-in-the-world," "skills" and "social practices," then this does indeed have important negativeimplications for the possibility that thought can be identified with behavior in accordance with a set of operations defined over formal symbols. As I will also show, however, Heidegger's work does leave openthe possibility that some digital computer might actually think. But to see this we must have someunderstanding of the question which Heidegger himself was trying to answer.

Heidegger's Project

[12] What question is Heidegger himself trying to answer? It is obvious that whatever that question was, itis not likely that it has any simple parallel among the questions raised in or about contemporary cognitivescience, so it is probably a good idea to specify concretely the character of Heidegger's own project. I dothat in this section.

[13] Heidegger rarely discussed "thought" or "cognition," and "consciousness" rarely appears as an issue inhis early writing. Instead, he focuses on intentionality. Heidegger follows Brentano and Husserl in takingintentionality as the mark of the mental sine qua non. So whatever Heidegger has to say which is relevant toquestions concerning thought and computers is going to be relevant to issues concerning intentionality.And, since the possible intentionality of a state is centrally tied to the possible semantics of that state,Heidegger's thought will be most directly relevant to the semantics of mental states.

[14] In fact, intentionality was one of the two topics which centrally concerned the early Heidegger. Theother topic was being. From Heidegger's perspective, these two topics are necessarily related, and heapproached this relationship from both sides.

[15] On the one hand, Heidegger felt that any investigation of "being" demanded that one first have somecomprehension of how any understanding of being was at all possible. Heidegger distinguishes at least three"questions of being": (1) What is that which is?; (2) What do we understand by the word "being"?; (3) Howis it possible to have any understanding of being? The first question is ambiguous between the population






question, what kinds of entities are there, and the question of what the criteria are by which we shouldanswer the population question. The second question concerns the meaning of "being," and as Heideggersees it, this question is more fundamental than the first in that any answer to either of the forms of the firstquestion presupposes an answer to the second. But, Heidegger thinks, even the question of the meaning of being (in this sense) rests upon a yet more fundamental question, the third "question of being," "How is anyunderstanding of being possible?" That is, if one is to understand what it is for something to be, one mustfirst understand what it is to intend something as something which is, and how it is possible to intendsomething as something which is. And if one is to understand what is meant by "being" in general, one

must first understand what it is and how it is possible to intend "being" as such and in general. But, asintentionality in general is marked by the fact that any intention is directed towards something which istaken as something which is, either as mere object of an intention or, in the more usual case, as transcendingthat act itself, one understands what it is to intend "being" just in case one understands intentionality assuch.

[16] Heidegger's conviction that one can only investigate what is meant by "being" by investigating thecharacter of the intention directed towards being is rooted in an assumption which Heidegger inherited fromKant by way of Husserl: the necessary conditions on the objects of an experience or an intention are rootedin the necessary conditions on that experience or intention itself. The validity of that assumption is notdirectly at issue here. What is relevant, however, is that from Heidegger's perspective, any investigation of

being must first articulate the nature and possibility of intentionality, and so this assumption drivesHeidegger from the "question of being" to an articulation of the character of intentionality.

[17] On the other hand, Heidegger felt that there was a basic gap in Husserl's articulation of intentionality.Heidegger thought that Husserl focused exclusively on the essential characteristics of various sorts of intentional acts and their objects. How is perception as such distinguishable from imagination, for example,or what is it that distinguishes the object of a perceptual experience from the object of an imaginativeexperience? But from Heidegger's perspective this left out the crucial issue of what one is saying when onesays that some thing is actually intending some other thing. "This, then, is the result of our deliberations: in[Husserl's] elaborating intentionality as the thematic field of phenomenology, the question of the being of the intentional is left undiscussed" (Heidegger 1985: 113). Another way to put "the question of the being ofthe intentional" is to ask "What are the necessary conditions on the possibility of intentionality?" A morecontemporary way to put this question is to ask, "What conditions must be satisfied when some event iscorrectly described in intentional terms?"

[18] This question, however, seems to have a ready answer. Ever since Brentano resurrected the medievalterm "intentional," it has been common to define "intentional" in such a way that a state is intentional just incase it is about or directed towards something. And Heidegger is certainly aware that Husserl has thisdefinition available to him, and Heidegger gives us no reason to think that he himself doesn't accept thedefinition. So Heidegger's question concerning the being of the intentional can't just be a request for adefinition of "intentional." And, in fact, it isn't. Rather, Heidegger is asking whether or not attributions to a

state of intentionality in the usual sense necessarily imply that that state also has other features. In particular,Heidegger is interested in whether for a state to be intentional it must be a state of some specific type of entity, and if so, what is the most general way to characterize that type of entity. Heidegger's name forentities which can support intentional states is "Dasein." And, for Heidegger, to ask after the most generalfeatures of a type of entity is to ask after the meaning of its being. So, as he makes explicit in Being and Time, Heidegger's basic question regarding the being of the intentional should be understood as the questionof the meaning of the being of Dasein.

[19] Heidegger takes the question of the meaning of the being of Dasein in a radical direction. On the faceof it, to ask what it means for a class of entities to be is just to ask for the properties which an individualmust have in order to belong to that class. And if membership in that class is deemed to be necessary for tha





individual to be the individual it is, then these properties are essential to the individual. But Heidegger haslittle interest in the issue of Dasein's essential properties. After all, he thinks that the tradition has alreadyidentified what those properties are: the intentional ones. Instead, Heidegger is struck by the fact thatintentional attributions come in packages. It seems to Heidegger that if some entity has one intentional state,then it has an entire set of them, and that some entities just don't seem to be the right sort of thing to haveany intentional states. So Heidegger wants to know what it is which characterizes an entity as being acandidate for having intentional states. How must an entity be, if it is to have intentions? To put the questionin modern dress: How are we describing something when we describe it in such a way that it has the full se

of intentional states? What must an entity be like if we are to be able to successfully take an intentionalstance towards it?

[20] There are some good reasons to think that if some state of some entity is intentional, then other states othat entity are also intentional. In typical cases, particular intentional attributions come in packages of attributions to individual entities. Jane can't believe that the gun is loaded, unless she also believes manyother things, and a case can be made that Jane also can't hope to avoid getting shot, or desire to leave theroom, or act in an attempt to leave the room unless she has many beliefs.

[21] In asking regarding the meaning of the being of Dasein, Heidegger is basing himself on these facts. Hisorientation towards intentionality is formed in and through attention to the systematic character of intentiona

attributions. Unsurprisingly, this orientation predisposes Heidegger in favor of some variety of holismregarding the intentional. To understand what is involved in an intentional state one must understand thebeing of the entity which has intentional states, and recognize why and how it is that such an entity has amultiplicity of such states. For Heidegger, to understand what it is for a state to be intentional one mustunderstand the basic structure of Dasein. And to understand the basic structure of Dasein is to comprehendwhat must be globally true of the entities which have intentions. This strategy distinguishes Heidegger'sapproach to issues regarding intentionality. Instead of focusing on the intentional character of individualstates or events, he focuses on the distinctive character of the subjects of intentional states.

Being-In-The-World

[22] So Heidegger's basic question in Being and Time is: "What is globally true of entities which can haveintentions?" At one level Heidegger's answer to this question is that any entity which has intentions must"be-in-the-world." This claim is the origin of Dreyfus' focus on "being-in-the-world," and thus indirectly ofBechtel and Abrahamsen's suggestion that Heidegger emphasized "that our cognitive system existsenmeshed in the world in which we do things." But what does it mean to assert that an entity is in-the-world, and what motivates the assertion that only such entities could have intentional states? In this section Ideal with the first of these questions. In the next section I discuss the motivations behind Heidegger's claimthat only entities which are in-the-world could have intentions.

[23] As Heidegger articulates it, being-in-the-world is quite complex. But for Heidegger it is at least the casethat any entity which has being-in-the-world as its mode of being displays two fundamental features. First, iacts purposefully in a goal-directed fashion. Second, in pursuing its goals any Dasein uses tools as tools,where to use a tool as a tool is to use it as it should be used because it should be used in that way. As how atool should be used is determined by a context of habitual social practice, to say that being-in-the-worldessentially involves tool use implies that an entity can be in the world only if its goal directed activity isnorm governed in the specific sense that in general it does what it is appropriate for it to do socially, ratherthan what is appropriate merely given what it wants to achieve. My discussion of being-in-the-world in thissection focuses on each of these features of Dasein in turn.

[24] Heidegger tells us that the basic structure of Dasein is "care." In Being and Time care is articulated as:





"...ahead-of-itself-Being-already-in-(the-world) as being-alongside (entities encountered within-the-world)"(Heidegger 1962: 237). Although I will make no effort to explicate the "care structure," there are twoaspects of Heidegger's discussion of care which are relevant here. First, Heidegger insists that only entitieswith the care structure can count as having intentions. "It could be shown from the phenomenon of care asthe basic structure of Dasein that what phenomenology took to be intentionality and how it took it isfragmentary, a phenomenon regarded merely from the outside. But what is meant by intentionality - the bareand isolated directing-itself-towards - must still be set back into the unified basic structure of being-ahead-of-itself-in-already-being-involved-in" (Heidegger 1985: 302-303). Second, Heidegger's specification of

"care," as "ahead-of-itself," etc., is an attempt to articulate the essential character of what Heidegger refersto as "the basic state of Dasein": being-in-the-world. So the basic state of beings with intentions is named"being-in-the-world," and the essence of this way of being is care; "...being-in-the-world is essentiallycare..." (Heidegger 1962: 237).

[25] "Being-in-the-world" is, of course, a compound expression, and while Heidegger insists that it is a"unitary phenomenon," he himself doesn't hesitate to reflect on its various aspects in a number of differentways. Terminologically, "being-in-the-world" is composed of "being-in" and "world." So it makes sometextual sense to approach Heidegger's being-in-the-world by way of "being-in" and "world."

[26] Heidegger approaches "being-in" in several ways, but for our purposes the most illuminating manner

of approach is by way of an early lecture course, The History of the Concept of Time. There he gives a listof "possible modes of in-being belonging to everydayness": "working on something with something,cultivating and caring for something, putting something to use, employing something for something, holdingsomething in trust, giving up, letting something get lost, interrogating, discussing, accomplishing, exploringconsidering, determining something" (Heidegger 1985: 159). Heidegger characterizes the commondenominator of these modes of being-in as "concern," but there is another aspect of this list which jumps upat you. All of these states involve overt behavior of embodied persons, overt behavior described inintentional terms. So if Heidegger thinks that only entities which are being-in-the-world can have intentionastates, and something is in the world just in case it is being-in, then the fact that Heidegger takes overtintentional performances as paradigmatic of "modes of being-in" gives a clear indication that Heideggermeans to assert that only entities which act intentionally can have any intentional states at all.

[27] Heidegger is certainly not unique in thinking that overt behavior can count as intentional. Almosteveryone thinks that. After all, whether one takes the mark of intentionality to be the informal "beingdirected towards" or the more formal linguistic criterion of being described using verbs which createapparently nonextensional contexts, intentional actions pass with flying colors. What is more significant isthat Heidegger also takes a stand on the question of what it is in virtue of which an act has intentionalcontent at all. On many views, the intentionality of overt acts is derivative from the intentionality of thestates which explain or cause them. This position is held by a very diverse group of thinkers. John Searleand Jerry Fodor, who share little else in common, agree that the intentional content of overt acts is derivativefrom the intentionality of the internal states which cause them, even if they disagree on the character of

those internal states. Heidegger, on the other hand, rejects this view. For Heidegger, to understandintentionality itself, in all of its forms, we must "set it back into the unified basic structure" of being-in-the-world. That is, rather than the intentionality of internal states being seen as explaining the intentionality of acts, Heidegger attempts to understand all intentionality in terms of being-in. And the paradigm cases of themodes of being-in are goal directed acts. So the intentionality of overt action is taken as primitive relative tothe intentionality of internal states, rather than the reverse.

[28] Thus, we can reach this conclusion regarding Heidegger's views concerning the entity which can haveintentions: given that acting intentionally is paradigmatic of the modes of being-in, and being-in is essentialto being-in-the-world, and being-in-the-world is the basic structure of entities which can have intentions, tosay that only entities which have being-in-the-world as their mode of being can have intentions is to say at





least that acting intentionally is necessary to having any intentional states whatsoever.

[29] Heidegger's privileging of overt intentional acts as the paradigm cases of intentionality suggests to himthat it would be inappropriate to describe those acts and their intentionality in terms derived from a modelwhich emphasizes the intentionality of the states which cause or explains those acts. So Heidegger nevertreats the directionality of goal directed acts as resolvable into the intentionality of beliefs and desires. Hethus resists the temptation to say of an act of hammering that what makes it an act of hammering is that theagent has a desire to make a nail fast and believes that moving the hammer in just this way will result in

making the nail fast. Instead, he starts with a description of the acts themselves as goal directed, and askswhat other intentions are implied in such descriptions.

[30] The paradigmatic modes of being-in, working on something or producing something, for instance,involve in addition to the goal of the act an apparent intention directed towards an entity as a certain type of tool. For example, if it is correct to describe a certain event as a hammering (that is, as directed towards thegoal of a nail being made fast), it is also correct to say that the agent is treating the object which is beingused as a hammer, and the entity which it is used on as a nail. For Heidegger, the primary way in which oneintends hammers as hammers is by hammering, and every time one hammers one intends something as ahammer. "Equipment can genuinely show itself only in dealings cut to its own measure (hammering with ahammer, for example)..." (Heidegger 1962: 98). So it is appropriate to say that some agent is engaging in a

goal directed act of production, say, only if it is also appropriate to say that she is intending some tool as atool. But, then, since Heidegger thinks that engaging in practical activity is a necessary condition on asubject having any intentions at all, and an agent engages in practical activity only if she intends tools astools by using them, then the necessary conditions on tool use are at the same time necessary conditions onintentionality as such. But what are the necessary conditions on intending tools as tools?

[31] The best way to come to grips with this question is by way of the other aspect of Heidegger's "being-in-the-world," the world. Heidegger thinks that the intentional actions which characterize Dasein as being-inalways presuppose a certain sort of context. "Being-in" is always "being-in-the-world." How are we tointerpret this talk about the world? The crucial clues come from Heidegger's specification of what weunderstand when we understand the world. When we understand world we understand a functionality

context. "We always already understand world in holding ourselves in a contexture of functionality." A"contexture of functionality" is a structure of relations which specifies various jobs which objects can beused for, and which types objects in terms of how they are to be used. What we intend an entity as when weintend it as a tool is something which is for a certain use, which is "in order to" accomplish a certain end.But this equipmental role, this specific "in order to" which characterizes the type to which the tool belongs,is itself specifiable only in terms of its relations with other equipmental roles. Hammers are for hammering,but hammering is for using nails to secure boards, so that the frame of, e.g., a house can be made strong, etcHeidegger's holism reveals itself in his claim that since each equipmental role is defined only in terms of itsrelations with others, the holistic context of such relations has a priority over each of the individual roles.This broadest context of functions, of what is to be done with different things, makes up the functionality

contexture which is understood when we understand the world.

Each individual piece of equipment is by its nature equipment-for - for traveling, for writing,for flying. Each one has its immanent reference to that for which it is what it is. It is alwayssomething for, pointing to a for-which. The specific structure of equipment is constituted by acontexture of the what for, in order to. Each particular equipmental thing has as such a specificreference to another particular thing. Every entity that we uncover as equipment has with it aspecific functionality. The contexture of the what for or in order to is a whole of functionalityrelations.... The functionality whole... is the prius, within which specific beings, as beings of this or that character, are as they are and exhibit themselves correspondingly. (Heidegger 1982:163-164)





[32] The widest functionality contexture is the world as "that for which one lets entities be encountered."That is, one can intend tools as tools only if one intends the entity which is a tool as to be used ("in-order-to") in a certain way, and to intend an entity as to be used in some way is to implicitly place it within thecontext of in order to relations which comprises the world. What it is to intend something as a hammer is tointend it as to be used to hammer nails, but one can do that only if one intends nails as a certain sort of toolwhich is to be used to make boards fast, and boards are tools.... So, for Heidegger, every actual tool usingactivity, as such, is only possible insofar as the Dasein which acts is "in the world," engaging in productiveactivity against a background of implicitly defined functional roles. Each particular act makes use of some

object and in doing so treats it as to be used to attain some particular end. But one can intend an object as tobe used in a definite way only insofar as one implicitly intends the other objects with which and on whichthe tool is to be used as themselves to be used in various ways. Every actual intentional tool use alsoinvolves an implicit understanding of the functional context in terms of which the tool used is the sort of tooit is. In Heidegger's terms, every occasion of being-in is being-in the world.

[33] Given Heidegger's emphasis on activity, on "in order to"s and "for the sake of"s there is an odd factabout Heidegger's philosophy of action. The odd fact is that Heidegger doesn't have any philosophy of action. Instead, he has a discussion of tool use. The attentive reader will have noticed that there was acertain slippage in the discussion several pages back. I began my articulation of Heidegger's concept of being-in by discussing the claim that only agents which act intentionally can have any intentions. But

Heidegger's paradigmatic modes of being-in all involve tool use, and his notion of the world specifies acontext of functional roles which define tools as tools. But surely not every goal directed act is a tool usingact. One would think that if anything counts as a goal directed activity it would be a tiger hunting its prey,but tigers typically don't use tools in doing so. So it seems that Heidegger is committed to a stronger thesisthan the one I attributed to him. For Heidegger it is not merely the case that to have intentions an entity musbe a subject of goal directed activity, it is also the case that the entity must be a subject of tool using activityBut what could possibly motivate such a claim?

[34] Heidegger believes that full fledged intentionality demands a certain sort of normativity. ForHeidegger, an agent counts as having intentions only if she engages in tool use, and to engage in tool use isby and large, to use the tools as she should use tools of that sort in realizing the goals of her tool using acts.But to use tools as they should be used displays a different sort of normativity than that displayed in non-tool using goal directed activity. That Heidegger thinks that acting in light of tool using norms is necessaryfor intentionality is probably a function of thinking that this kind of normativity is necessary for languageuse, and thinking that language is necessary for genuine intentionality.(3) To understand Heidegger's viewson how tool using action is essential to intentionality as such it is best to compare his account of how actioninvolves a normative dimension with Donald Davidson's position (Davidson 1980, 1984).

[35] For Davidson, an event is an act if it is part of a pattern of events which are coherent in the sense thatthey are integrated into a system in which, by and large, the agent does what she should do, given herreasons for action. Those reasons, in turn, are understood in terms of the agent's beliefs and desires. An

individual act is rational, in the narrowest sense, if it is an act which the agent should perform given thebelief and desire of the agent which explain that act. So it is rational for me to flip the switch if I believe thadoing so will turn on the light and I want the light to be on. Conversely, the content of a given state of theagent is partially fixed by the normative role of that state in the system of the agent's acts. To oversimplify,for a state to be the belief that flipping the switch will turn on the light is for it to be a state such that, giventhat one is in that state, if one also had the desire to turn on the light, then one should flip the switch. (Onemust add to this the principle of charity that the agent with this state mostly does what she should.) Theserelations suggest that one interpret the goal of an act to be the realization of a state of affairs which satisfiesthe desire which partially rationalizes the act. I believe that flipping the switch will turn on the light, and Iwant that light to be on, so I flip the switch. I should flip the switch insofar as the flipping is an act which istoward the light being on. Thus the content of the desire which is ingredient in the explanation of the act is






covariant with the direction or goal of the act itself. In turn, the content of the belief which is relevant to anact's explanation would then be the state of affairs, which, if it were actual, would make it rational for theagent to do as she does, given her desire.

[36] The normativity involved in this sort of instrumental rationality ultimately derives from the ends whichare specified by the desire of the agent and the means which are sufficient to realize those ends under avariety of circumstances. I should do that which in the actual circumstances would satisfy my desire. And,given the minimal conditions on rationality embodied in the charity principle, I most often do that. But not

always. One of the jobs of the concept of belief is to help fill in this gap. Often when I do what I should notgiven my ends and the actual situation, I do what I should given my ends and my beliefs. So the content of my belief specifies the state of affairs in which I should have done what I in fact did do in order to realizemy ends. So, for Davidson entities have intentions only if they have beliefs and desires and they havebeliefs and desires only if we can interpret what they do teleologically, that is, as attempting to realize goalsAnd such entities both act teleologically and have intentions only if in general they act as they should,where the norms which determine what should be done are fixed by the desires of the agent and the actualsituation.

[37] Action which involves equipment displays a characteristic type of normativity which is different inkind from that displayed by non-equipmental action. The only sense in which I should not do or believe

something which is instrumental to one of my ends is that realizing that end might be incompatible withsome further end of my own. There is a sense, however, in which a tool can be used incorrectly, even whenit is used successfully to achieve some end of an agent. A hammer can be used successfully as apaperweight, but insofar as it is indeed a hammer, to use it in this way is to fail to use it as it should be used.It is to miss the fact that it is a hammer and not a paper weight; or, as Heidegger would say, it is to fail tounderstand the being of the hammer. So insofar as human action involves using tools as tools, that is, as tobe used in certain characteristic ways, human action involves a kind of normativity which is absent from thenon-tool using animal kingdom, and also absent from Davidson's understanding of the normative dimensionof intentions.

[38] For Heidegger, we are in-the-world only if we use tools as tools. But what is it to use something as a

tool? One might think that to use e.g., a hammer as a hammer is to act out of a desire to make a nail fast anda belief that one can make it fast if one moves this object in just this hammering way. But Heidegger thinksthat this is too simple. Tools aren't merely things which can be used so as to achieve ends in certaincircumstances. In fact, defective tools can be tools even if they are not capable of being used to achieve theircharacteristic ends. And objects which are capable of being so used need not be that sort of tool. Rather,tools are things which are to be used in certain ways, or should be used in those ways. The status of being atool is a normative status, as Robert Brandom would say (Brandom 1994). To intend something as ahammer is to intend it as an entity which it is correct to use in certain situations, with certain other types of tools to achieve certain functionally described types of ends. And the conditions which specify when it isappropriate to use a tool of a certain type, and thereby define that tool type, are themselves normatively

specified conditions. To intend a hammer as a hammer is to intend this entity as to be used as a hammer is tobe used, and thus as normatively related to a whole host of other normatively characterized entity types andnormatively characterized possible end and initial situations.

[39] This "to be used" character of equipment can't be derived from the ends of the agent. Indeed, thisnormative character of tools is precisely rooted in the distinction between the ends for which the tool can beused and the ends for which it is to be used. Heidegger thinks that language use demands using words asthey are to be used, and so that language use displays this same form of normativity as tool use. And,insofar as language is necessary for intentionality, Heidegger thinks that being-in-the-world, that is, usingtools as tools, is necessary for all intentional agents, and thus for all intentional states.





[40] But what is it that fixes the normative roles which define the tool types which are characteristic of thefunctional contexture in which agents which are in-the-world must act? The specific character of the world,the interlocking normative structures which specify how things are to be used, can't depend upon the endsof the individual agent's who actually use the tools. Rather, Heidegger thinks, these roles are fixed socially:I ought to act as "one" is to act, where the "one" is a distinctive social norm.

[41] Thus, for Heidegger, an entity can have intentions only if it is in-the-world, and it is in-the-world onlyif it uses equipment skillfully as it should be used according to prevailing social practices. But these claims

are based on a fundamental decision regarding the priority of the intentionality of goal directed action overthe intentionality of internal "mental" representations. And, it is legitimate to ask, "What motivates thisdecision?" In the next section I turn to this issue.

The Puzzle of Intentionality and Goal Directed Action

[42] The early Heidegger himself offered two sorts of considerations to motivate his claims regardingintentionality and being-in-the-world. First, he appealed to a phenomenological description of what it is likefor a conscious agent to engage in intentional acts. Second, he appealed to a particular puzzle regarding thesemantics of intentional states, or the way they are directed towards what they are about. Although Dreyfus

frequently emphasizes the phenomenological aspects of Heidegger's discussions, I find those considerationsunpersuasive. I thus tend to emphasize the puzzle of intentionality in motivating Heidegger's views. In thissection, after briefly mentioning my reasons for viewing phenomenology with caution, I lay out theintentionality puzzle.

[43] Phenomenological approaches to the mind arise out of the fact that three distinct characteristics havetraditionally been lumped together as "mental." First, mental states are intentional. Second, our individualintentional states, together with the relations among them, rationalize our actions. Third, it has traditionallybeen thought that all mental states are conscious. Now, it has been traditional to see these three "mental"regions as coextensive. And, since Descartes, it has also been frequently assumed that consciousness isincorrigible. Given this incorrigibility, the identification of the mental with the conscious suggested that it

was possible to authoritatively investigate the intentional and rationalizing aspects of the mental by giving adescription of those aspects from the first person standpoint of the agent's own conscious life. And, in thatcase, the phenomenological method is the obvious choice for an investigation of the necessary conditions onintentionality.

[44] Unfortunately for the claims of phenomenology, the identification of the mental with the conscious isno longer quite so obvious as it once seemed. Such a conflation now appears to beg several importantquestions. In particular, it now seems quite possible that I can have intentional states which influence andrationalize my behavior, but of which I am not aware. Equally, it is now quite apparent that many of thoseactivities which were traditionally explained by appeal to mental states, such as playing chess, can be"performed" adequately by entities which follow rules for the manipulation of formally characterizedsymbols but which quite clearly have no states resembling our conscious ones. And it seems to many that asyntactic approach which treats the mind as a machine running a set of algorithms on formal symbols, andthose symbols as related to the world by a set of representation relations, is at least a possible source of illumination on the mental. But if either of these is possible, then it could not be the case that all and onlyconscious states were intentional or rationalizing. And in that case, there would be no reason to think thatthe best we could do from a phenomenological first person perspective is the best we could do in providingan account of either rationality or intentionality.

[45] So if the only reasons Heidegger has for his account of intentionality are phenomenological, then hegives no reasons which need be considered seriously by anyone who denies that all intentional states must





be conscious, or who even denies that the necessary conditions on intentionality must be available toconsciousness. Fortunately, Heidegger does offer other than phenomenological grounds for his viewsregarding intentionality. Those grounds arise out of a reflection on the character of intentionality itself,rather than from any considerations arising out of or grounded in our consciousness of our own intentionalstates.

[46] From Heidegger's perspective the key fact about intentionality is that it is "transcendent." Myintentional states are about entities which transcend both those states themselves and the fact that they are

intended. That is, when I see a chair or believe that there is a chair in the corner it is the chair itself which Iam intending, not any hypothetical mental object which only is if it is being intended. "When I look, I amnot intent upon seeing a representation of something, but the chair" (Heidegger 1985: 35). "In conformitywith its sense of direction, perception is directed toward a being which is extant" (Heidegger 1982: 63).

[47] Now this fact concerning the transcendence of our intentions gives us no guidance regarding how weare to understand how such transcendence is possible. And it looks as if we do need some guidance on thisissue. The problem is that, on the one hand, intentional states appear to be relational. The verbs whichestablish intentional contexts all take objects which specify what the state described is about. But, on theother, the entities mentioned in the object clauses need not exist. I can hear voices when there is no onethere and I can believe that unicorns are mammals even though there are no unicorns. So the relation which

characterizes intentionality can't be a real relation between the intender and the object which is intended, asreal relations presuppose the existence of both relata.

[48] These facts lead to a puzzle. Intentional states are typed and identified in part by the objects towardswhich they are directed. But the intentional character of these states can't be understood as a relationbetween these states and the actual object towards which they are directed. So how are we to understand therelational character of the intentional without committing ourselves to the existence of entities which neednot exist?

[49] One classic response to this puzzle is to postulate a third entity, distinct from both the event of intentionand the object which is intended, which is supposed to mediate between the subject and the object intended

Such entities allow one to distribute the problem. On one side, intentionality involves a real relation betweentwo existing entities, the subject and the mediating "third." On the other side, the mediating entity is thoughtto represent, stand for, or mean some possible state of affairs or entity. And, since that state of affairs orentity which is represented is merely possible, it is possible for us to intend it even though it does not obtainor exist.

[50] Heidegger is a straightforward anti-representationalist. Aside from phenomenological doubts, the basicproblem for Heidegger with all varieties of these mediating entities is that they just don't do the job forwhich they are designed. All of the heavy lifting is done by the representation relation. But this relation is atthis point left entirely opaque. Instead of saying that I can see a chair which is not there we are taught to saythat I intend an item which is there but which represents a possible chair which might not be there. But whatare the identity conditions for possible chairs, as Quine might ask? And what relation, natural or unnatural,is the representation relation with possible chairs, as Heidegger might ask?

[51] So Heidegger rejects the representational theory of intentionality. Whether he is right to do so isanother issue, of course. But at least until someone has actually succeeded in telling us exactly what being arepresentation consists in, it is rational to search for another account of intentionality. And this is preciselywhat Heidegger does.

[52] Formally, Heidegger's solution to the puzzle of intentionality is to take the "directedness towards"which is the defining property of the intentional as intentional as an intrinsic, non-relational property of the





intentional comportment itself. Thought is open to or related to its object, transcends itself towards its objectin virtue of its own essential character as directed-towards, so the thought needn't involve a real relationwith its object. This solution to the puzzle raises as many problems as it solves, however. It is simplyimpossible for the properties of classically conceived substances to involve relations to something else inthemselves. The properties of substances are either intrinsic, in which case they characterize the substanceapart from any relations that substance has to any other entity, or the properties are relational, in which casethe property implies the existence of the other relatum in the relation.

[53] So, Heidegger concludes, intentional states just can't be states of substances. Rather, they must be statesof a different sort of entity, Dasein. Now, we have seen that Dasein are essentially in the world, and to be inthe world is to be an agent who uses tools as they are to be used because they are to be used in that way. Sopresumably Heidegger thinks that characterizing the subjects of intentional states as being-in-the-worldhelps to solve the puzzle of intentionality. And so he does.

[54] Here is how it is supposed to work. Remember the paradigmatic modes of being-in are "working onsomething, producing something, putting something to use," etc. All of these states involve overt behaviorof embodied persons, overt behavior which is described in intentional or goal directed terms. And, from thestandpoint of the intentionality puzzle, what is striking is that each of these states demand some relationbetween an agent and her environment, but need not involve a relation between the agent and the object

which is mentioned in the characterization of the act itself. So, given what it is to be acting so as to producea widget, it is possible, in virtue of real concrete relations between an agent and some entities in herenvironment, to be acting in order to achieve that end even though there are no widgets, never have beenand never will be. Heidegger's strategy, then, is to solve the puzzle of intentionality by showing thatbecause what it is to be acting so as to achieve a possible state of affairs is defined in terms of a manner of working on and with those things which do exist, in the case of intentional action one can intend a state of affairs that is not achieved by working on and with other things which really do exist. He then hopes tounderstand all other intentional states through their relations, explanatory and otherwise, with goal directedaction.

[55] Consider the case of attempting to produce a house. There are two ways to understand what is meant

when it is said that someone is attempting an act of house production. One interpretation is that when oneproduces a house one has a representation of a house present to the mind and that this representation of thehouse partially causes the acts of the agent. On this view, an act is an act of production iff it is caused in theright way by house representations. Alternatively, one can think that a certain behavior is directed in theway it is in virtue of its relations with other behavior and the natural and social environment in which ittakes place. On this view, a series of motions can count as an attempt to build a house, iff they arecoordinated in the right way with each other, the environment in which they occur, their effects on theenvironment, and the socially constituted norms for appropriately using tools to build houses. So, whilethere must be latitude given for the possibility of failure, for what I am currently doing to count ashammering in the cause of house production it must in general be done with certain functionally

characterized types of things, on certain functionally characterized types of things, in order to accomplishcertain socially characterized types of ends. And all of these can be correct descriptions of my behavior onlyif my overt behavior has a certain characteristic structure and a definite set of relations with the norms of mysociety.

[56] Given Heidegger's anti-representationalism he rejects the representational alternative as non-explanatory. Instead, he adopts the second view of productive and intentional action. But the goaldirectedness of action is, then, a case of how an agent's relationship with her environment can imply anintentional relation between the agent and a merely possible end. Since, for Heidegger, this is the only casein which an intentional relation can be made comprehensible in terms of real, albeit teleological andnormative, relations, all intentional states are to be understood in terms of their relations with the purposeful





activity of social agents. One is Dasein (has intentions) only if one acts, one acts only if one is in-the-world,and one is in-the-world only if one acts skillfully according to the practices of the society in which one lives

[57] This, then, is the outline of the considerations which Heidegger advances supporting his viewsconcerning the necessary conditions on intentional subjects and intentional states. Any account of intentionality must give us some understanding of the semantic character of intentional states. No semanticsno intentionality. The prime semantic fact is that a state can be about or directed towards something which inot or does not obtain, so intentions can't be understood as real relations between a subject and the objects

specified in the description of the intentional state. Representational views of intentionality remain non-starters until they can give us an account of the representation relation, and at present they give us no suchaccount. We do, however, have a case of an intentional state for which we can begin to understand how anintention can be directed towards a possible state of affairs even if that state of affairs does not obtain. Ingoal directed action, what it is for the action to be directed towards the possible goal which is specified inthe description of the act can be understood in terms of relations between that act and other real entities, aslong as those relations are characterized in normative and/or teleological terms. Since this is the only case inwhich we can understand the oddities of the semantic dimension of intentionality, we should understand thesemantics of all intentions in terms of their relations with the semantics of "skillful coping." So the necessaryconditions on the possibility of describing an agent as skillfully coping with her environment whilefollowing social norms, whatever those conditions might be, are at the same time the necessary conditions

on that agent having any intentions whatsoever. That is, nothing can think unless it is being-in-the-world.

Implications for Cognitive Science

[58] Assume that everything Heidegger has to say about intentionality were true. What difference wouldthat make to the correct answer to either of the questions concerning computers and thought which Idistinguished earlier? Those questions were: (1) Is what it is for an entity to think expressible as the runningof a program which specifies what the entity does at each point by reference to a set of rules defined overformal symbols?; (2) Given the conditions on thinking, whatever they might be, could a digital computerfollowing a program ever count as thinking?

[59] Given the above description of Heidegger's work it should be clear that whatever relevance Heideggerhas to the answer to these questions turns on identifying "thinking" with "having intentions," where to"have intentions" does not imply a primitive intentionality of internal states, but merely that an entity hasstates with intentional descriptions. Heidegger is primarily concerned with the being of the intentional, andbeing-in-the-world and skillful coping in accordance with social practices are conditions on any beinghaving intentions. So I will take this identification of thought and intentionality for granted.

[60] Heidegger's conclusions regarding being-in-the-world, skills and practices, and intentionalityessentially amount to an attempt to specify what it is for something to be like us in having intentions. AsHeidegger himself is at pains to make clear, his questions concern the meaning of the being of Dasein, orwhat is presupposed about the subject when one makes intentional attributions. So one way to look atHeidegger's results would be to take them as a set of specifications which must be satisfied by any entitywhich could count as having intentions.(4)

[61] Clearly, then, Heidegger's work is most directly relevant to the first question, the question of being.And the relevance of Heidegger's work to that question is equally clear. Since for Heidegger what it is tohave intentions is specified by being-in-the-world, and one is in-the-world only if one acts in accordancewith social norms using tools as they should be used according to social norms for socially prescribed ends,one can't define what it is to have intentions in terms of behavior according to a set of algorithms definedover formal symbols. The problem is that such a set of algorithms prescribe what a system will do. But wha






it is to have intentions is defined in terms of what a system should do. For Heidegger, something is in-the-world only if, in general, it acts as it should act because it should act in that way. But there is no way tocapture the content of a normative system which specifies the norms governing how an agent should act interms of a set of rules which specifies how an agent will act. And, since it is a necessary condition forDasein having intentions that it in general acts appropriately given some set of norms, one can't specifywhat it is that Dasein is doing which qualifies it as having intentions by saying that it is following anyformal algorithm.

[62] One way this comes out is that, for Heidegger, an entity can count as having intentions only if it actsteleologically for ends. And one can be acting for end E even if what one does does not result in E, and onecan not be acting in order to realize E even if what one does results in E (Okrent 1991). So the conditionthat an entity must act for ends if it is to count as having intentions can't be captured by specifying that it actaccording to the rules in any system of actual inputs and outputs. Further, for Heidegger, only agents whouse tools appropriately count as having intentions in the full sense. And to use tools appropriately involvesusing them as they should be used, where this norm is defined in terms of a set of holistic relations amongsimilarly normatively defined types of equipment and situations. To use A as it should be used is, in part, touse it with B in situation C in order to achieve D, in which one should use E with F to achieve ..., where Cand D are defined in terms of what should be done in those situations and B, E, and F are defined only interms of each other and the situations they should be used in and for. And none of these "shoulds" or "in

order to"s is translatable into a "will."

[63] So, if Heidegger is right there is no way in which the mind can be a program in the sense that theprogram defines what it is to have a mind. What is interesting about this is that the deep structure of Heidegger's argument is similar with the structure of Searle's Chinese room argument, but the content isentirely different (Searle 1980). Searle argues, one will remember, that programs are syntactic, minds have asemantics, and syntax is insufficient for semantics; so programs are not minds. But Searle's reason forthinking that syntax is insufficient for a semantics is that he thinks that consciousness is necessary forsemantic content, and that syntax is insufficient for consciousness. Heidegger, on the other hand, waives theconsciousness requirement. Instead he argues, based on his discussion of the intentionality puzzle, thatacting practically for ends is necessary for semantic content, and syntax is insufficient for acting for ends.

[64] There is a crucial difference between the structure of Heidegger's argument and the structure of Searle's, however. Since for Searle the semantics of thought is dependent on conscious states, only entitieswith conscious states could count as thinking, no matter how they behave. But for Heidegger the semanticsof thought depends upon being-in-the-world, and being-in-the-world crucially involves a style of action. Soit looks as if it might be possible for something to qualify as thinking in virtue of the style of its action alone.I turn to this possibility next.

[65] Everything which I have said so far concerning Heidegger's relevance to cognitive science is incomplete accord with Dreyfus' claims regarding Heidegger, although we read Heidegger quite differently. I

Heidegger is right, then what it is to have intentions can't be captured in any set of formally defined rules.This result, it seems to me, is crucial, and, given Heidegger's primary interest in ontology, I am certain it isthe result which Heidegger would have insisted upon. It also seems to me, however, that this ontologicalconclusion leaves the ontic question open. Regardless of what Dreyfus (or Heidegger himself, for thatmatter) might think, it doesn't follow from the fact (if it is a fact) that what it is to think can't be defined interms of a program, that entities which behave according to a program could not also count as thinking. Onecan see that this is the case if one pursues the implications of a dialogue which Dreyfus initiated with theghost of Alan Turing.

[66] In the article which can justly be said to have inaugurated the program of strong AI, Turing was willingto admit that "it is not possible to produce a set of rules purporting to describe what a man should do in





every conceivable set of circumstances" (Turing 1950: 441). What Heidegger adds to this discussion is theassertion that what it is to have a mind must be understood in terms of acting in accordance with some set ofrules describing what should be done in every conceivable set of circumstances (where those circumstancetypes are also defined normatively). And, if this is the case, then it follows straightforwardly from thepremise which Turing accepts that no set of formal rules could specify what it is to have a mind. The onlyquestion which remains at issue then is "Could a machine which is programmed to behave in accordancewith a set of formal rules also count as, in general, doing what it should, where what it should do isdetermined by a set of social practices?" That is, could such a machine also count as having intentions?

[67] Turing denied that it followed from the premise that he is willing to accept, that what a person shoulddo can not be expressed in any set of rules, that there were no "laws of behavior," that is, "laws of nature asapplied to a man's body." And, we might add, Turing was surely right in this denial. Dreyfus, however, isalso correct when he responds that it doesn't follow from the fact that the behavior of human agents followcausal laws that these laws could be embodied in a computer program (Dreyfus 1979: 192). So it doesn'tfollow from the fact that everything in nature, including things which have intentions, fall under causallaws, that a digital computer could count as having intentions. But, it might fairly be objected, it also surelydoesn't follow that these causal laws could not be embodied in a computer program. And if these causallaws could be embodied in such a program, then a machine could actually do everything that a person doesin the same situations, physically described. And, it might be argued, in virtue of that fact, if the person

counts as a Dasein, so would the machine.

[68] Well, given Heidegger's views, why couldn't this be the case? I can think of only two possible reasonsto think that Heidegger's results preclude the possibility that some symbol processing computer mightpossibly count as having intentions. And it seems to me that Dreyfus has at times appealed to both of thesepossible grounds. On the one hand, one can think that Heidegger shows that some form of consciousness isrequired for intentionality, and that Heidegger has shown that machines following formal rules can'tpossibly be conscious. Unfortunately, while these considerations would in fact weigh against the possibilityof a programmed machine having genuine intentions, as far as I can see Heidegger neither argues thatconsciousness is necessary for intentionality (although his Husserlian upbringing might predispose him inthat direction) nor that formal syntactical engines couldn't be conscious. So there are no distinctivelyHeideggerean grounds for arguing in this way.

[69] On the other hand, one might try to appeal to the Heideggerean premise that the relations which specifywhat an agent must be if it is to have intentions can not be expressed in terms of a set of formal rules whichcould be embodied in a computer program. In that case one would attack the step in the above argumentfrom "machine and human do the same things in the same situations, physically described" to "machine andhuman both count as having intentions." If, as Heidegger thinks, to have intentions one must in general dowhat one should do because one should do it, and what one should do can not be expressed in any set of formal rules, then one can't argue from "A and B do the same things, physically described" to "A and Bboth count as having intentions." One can't infer this because, if the premises are true, there can be no

lawful relation between "doing the same thing physically described" and "doing the same thing intentionallydescribed," so there is no way to infer from the fact that some machine does the same things in the samephysical situations as a Dasein that they have the same intentions. The relations which are physicallyrelevant need not be identical with the relations which are intentionally relevant, so the inference is blockedfrom physical similarity to intentional similarity.

[70] This, it seems to me, is quite a good argument. In fact, it reproduces in slightly altered form anargument which Davidson developed to show that, because there are systematically different types of criteria used to attribute physical and psychological states, there can be no psycho-physical laws (Davidson1980). The conclusion to this argument, however, is that, even if it turned out to be possible to programactual human behavior patterns, physically described, this would be insufficient to guarantee that the entity





running this program would also count as having intentions. Intuitively, this is right. If Heidegger is correctin thinking of intentionality as requiring a relation between an agent and a social context of practices, then ifone alters the social environment of an entity, one also might be altering whether or not that entity hadintentions, even if the physical description of the entity's behavior remains the same. But this still doesn'tshow that a digital computer could not have intentions.

[71] Precisely insofar as the two descriptions, "acting purposefully as one should given a set of socialpractices" and "acting in accordance with a set of rules for manipulating formal symbols," are logically

independent of one another, the behavior of some agent might satisfy both descriptions. The only way wecould ever find out whether we could build such an entity (or, maybe, even be one) is to try to build oneand see (or to try to come up with a set of rules which adequately captures our own behavior, which, underanother description, is also skillfully coping with our environment, by acting in accordance with socialpractices).

[72] Now, given the character of the necessary conditions which Heidegger places on intentionality, withthe emphasis on social normativity and goal directedness, it may seem to one that it is unlikely that anyentity could both be a digital computer and a Dasein. But a Heideggerean can't legitimately go further in herresponse to the ontic question. Even if what qualifies a thinker as a thinker is not that it behaves as somecomputer would, it does not follow that some computer could not also be a thinker.

[73] This result, however, is entirely in accord with the spirit of Heidegger's work. From a Heideggereanperspective, the important issues are all ontological. The only ontological question in this area is thequestion of the being of the intentional. And Heidegger's answer to this question is incompatible with thehypothesis that the mind is a computer in the sense that what it is to be a mind could be expressed in someprogram. This is the important result. Whether or not some computer could also count as thinking is, itseems to me, a much less interesting question.

Received 12/6/95.

References [1]

Bechtel, W. and A. Abrahamsen (1991). Connectionism and the Mind . Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

[2]Brandom, R. (1983). "Heidegger's Categories in Being and Time." The Monist 66.

[3]--- (1994). Making it Explicit . Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

[4]Davidson, D. (1980). Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford: Clarendon Press.





[5]--- (1984). Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[6]Dreyfus, H. (1979). What Computers Can't Do, Second Edition. New York: Harper and Row.

[7]Heidegger, M. (1925). Prolegomena zur Geshichte des Zeitbegriffs. Frankfurt am Main:Klostermann, 1979.

[8]--- (1927a). Sein und Zeit . Tubingen: Niemayer, 1957.

[9]--- (1927b). Die Grundprobleme der Phanomenologie. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1975.

[10]--- (1962). Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York:Harper and Row.

[11]--- (1982). The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Translated by Albert Hofstadter. Bloomington:Indiana University Press.

[12]--- (1985). History of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena. Translated by Theodore Kisiel.Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

[13]Okrent, M. (1988). Heidegger's Pragmatism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

[14]--- (1991). "Teleological Underdetermination". American Philosophical Quarterly 28: 147-156.





[15]Searle, J. (1980). "Minds, Brains, and Programs." Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3: 417-457.

[16]Turing, A. M. (1950). "Computing Machinery and Intelligence." Mind LIX: 433-460.

Footnotes

(1)

This way of putting the question is suggested by a formulation in frequent critical remarks concerningAI by John Searle, most recently in The New York Review of Books, Vol. XLII, no. 17, Nov. 2,1995. Searle usually puts the issue in terms of whether or not the conscious mind is a computerprogram, but I have left out the reference to consciousness, for reasons which will become clearbelow.

(2)There is also a third question in the area which involves actual human brains. If one assumes thatwhat it is for an entity to have a mind is for its behavior to satisfy some program defined over formalsymbols, is there anything actually in the human brain, physically described, which correlates withthe abstractly defined states of the "mental" program? Here the question would concern whether ornot there are actual human brain states which, in virtue or their causal roles, could count as realizingthe computational states of the program which defines mentality. As Heidegger rejects the premise ofthis question he has nothing to contribute to its discussion.

(3)cf. (Okrent 1988) and (Brandom 1983).

(4)This way of looking at Heidegger wouldn't be entirely accurate. He thinks that the various aspects of Dasein must all come together as a package, and that, since the definitions of the many intentionalstates are interdependent, it isn't even intelligible to isolate one "condition" (say acting in order toaccomplish some end), from all of the others (for example, tool use), and treating it as satisfiableseparately. Nevertheless, keeping this proviso in mind, in this context it will do no harm to think of Heidegger's work as providing us with a set of conditions on being an intentional subject.

©1996 Mark Okrent EJAP is a non-profit entity produced at Indiana University. EJAP may not be printed, forwarded, orotherwise distributed for any reasons other than personal use. Do not post EJAP on public bulletin boards oany kind; use pointers and links instead. EJAP retains the right to continuously print all the articles it




accepts, but all other rights return to the author upon publication. EJAP, Philosophy Department, SycamoreHall 026, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405.

The Electronic Journal of Analytic Philosophy, 4 (Spring 1996)

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why the mind isn't a program (but some digital computer might have a mind)

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