Can semantics be syntactic?

Neal Jahren

pp. 309-328

in: Synthese 82 (3), 1990.

Abstract

The author defends John R. Searle's Chinese Room argument against a particular objection made by William J. Rapaport called the ‘Korean Room’. Foundational issues such as the relationship of ‘strong AI’ to human mentality and the adequacy of the Turing Test are discussed. Through undertaking a Gedankenexperiment similar to Searle's but which meets new specifications given by Rapaport for an AI system, the author argues that Rapaport's objection to Searle does not stand and that Rapaport's arguments seem convincing only because they assume the foundations of strong AI at the outset.

Cited authors

Rapaport William J.