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From Proceedings of the 15th Annual Conference of the Cognitive
Science Society, 1993, p. 155-160. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates.
Symbol Grounding - the Emperor's New Theory of
Meaning?
Morten H. Christiansen & Nick Chater
Abstract
What is the relationship between cognitive theories of symbol
grounding and philosophical theories of meaning? In this paper we
argue that, although often considered to be fundamentally distinct,
the two are actually very similar. Both set out to explain how
non-referring atomic tokens or states of a system can acquire status as
semantic primitives within that system. In view of this close
relationship, we consider what attempts to solve these problems can
gain from each other. We argue that, at least presently, work on symbol
grounding is not likely to have an impact on philosophical theories of
meaning. On the other hand, we suggest that the symbol grounding
theorists have a lot to learn from their philosophical counterparts.
In particular, the former must address the problems that have been
identified in attempting to formulate philosophical theories of
reference.
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