ContactPerson: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu
### Begin Citation ### Do not delete this line ###
%R 2001-09
%U /home/csfaculty/rapaport/public_html/Papers/CRS.tr.pdf
%A Rapaport, William J.
%T Holism, Conceptual-Role Semantics, and Syntactic Semantics
%D August 17, 2001
%I Department of Computer Science and Engineering, SUNY Buffalo
%K philosophy of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, SNePS, holism, semantics, knowledge representation
%X This essay continues my investigation of "syntactic semantics":  the 
theory that, *pace* Searle's Chinese-Room Argument, syntax *does* 
suffice for semantics (in particular, for the semantics needed for a 
computational cognitive theory of natural-language understanding). 
Here, I argue that syntactic semantics (which is internal and 
first-person) is what has been called a conceptual-role semantics:  The 
meaning of any expression is the role that it plays in the complete 
system of expressions.  Such a "narrow", conceptual-role semantics is 
the appropriate sort of semantics to account (from an "internal", or 
first-person perspective) for how a cognitive agent understands 
language.  Some have argued for the primacy of external, or "wide", 
semantics, while others have argued for a two-factor analysis. 
But, although two factors can be specified---one internal and 
first-person, the other only specifiable in an external, third-person 
way---only the internal, first-person one is needed for understanding 
how someone understands.  A truth-conditional semantics can still be 
provided, but only from a third-person perspective.