Key Arguments

• Dreyfus lists phenomena such as "A mistake, a collision, an embarrassing situation, etc.," arguing that "do not seem on the face of it to be objects or facts about objects," challenging the ontology of everything as facts.
• Even apparently simple physical objects like "a chair" are, he argues, "not understandable in terms of any set of facts or 'elements of knowledge.'"
• To recognize an object as a chair is to "understand its relation to other objects and to human beings," invoking "a whole context of human activity" including the shape of the body, the institution of furniture, and the inevitability of fatigue, which themselves are not isolable facts.
• He insists that these contextual factors "in turn are no more isolable than is the chair" and that they "may get their meaning in the context of human activity of which they form a part," indicating a network of mutual dependence rather than independent elements.
• Dreyfus claims that "In general, we have an implicit understanding of the human situation which provides the context in which we encounter specific facts and make them explicit," suggesting that explicit facts presuppose a prior, non‑factual background understanding.
• He denies that "all the facts we can make explicit about our situation are already unconsciously explicit in a 'model structure'," and questions whether we "Could ever make our situation completely explicit even if we tried," rejecting the idea that human understanding is or could be fully represented as a complete set of stored facts.

Source Quotes

The problem may itself be an artifact created by the fact that AI workers must operate with discrete elements. Human knowledge does not seem to be analyzable as an explicit description as Minsky would like to believe. A mistake, a collision, an embarrassing situation, etc., do not seem on the face of it to be objects or facts about objects.

Human knowledge does not seem to be analyzable as an explicit description as Minsky would like to believe. A mistake, a collision, an embarrassing situation, etc., do not seem on the face of it to be objects or facts about objects. Even a chair is not understandable in terms of any set of facts or "elements of knowledge."

A mistake, a collision, an embarrassing situation, etc., do not seem on the face of it to be objects or facts about objects. Even a chair is not understandable in terms of any set of facts or "elements of knowledge." To recognize an object as a chair, for example, means to understand its relation to other objects and to human beings.

They all may get their meaning in the context of human activity of which they form a part (see Chapter 8). In general, we have an implicit understanding of the human situation which provides the context in which we encounter specific facts and make them explicit. There is no reason, only an ontological commitment, which makes us suppose that all the facts we can make explicit about our situation are already unconsciously explicit in a "model structure," or that we Could ever make our situation completely explicit even if we tried.10* Why does this assumption seem self-evident to Minsky?

In general, we have an implicit understanding of the human situation which provides the context in which we encounter specific facts and make them explicit. There is no reason, only an ontological commitment, which makes us suppose that all the facts we can make explicit about our situation are already unconsciously explicit in a "model structure," or that we Could ever make our situation completely explicit even if we tried.10* Why does this assumption seem self-evident to Minsky? Why is he so unaware of the alternative that he takes the view that intelligence in- volves a "particular, knowledge or model structure," a great systematic array of facts, as an axiom rather than as an hypothesis?

Key Concepts

• Human knowledge does not seem to be analyzable as an explicit description as Minsky would like to believe.
• A mistake, a collision, an embarrassing situation, etc., do not seem on the face of it to be objects or facts about objects.
• Even a chair is not understandable in terms of any set of facts or "elements of knowledge."
• In general, we have an implicit understanding of the human situation which provides the context in which we encounter specific facts and make them explicit.
• There is no reason, only an ontological commitment, which makes us suppose that all the facts we can make explicit about our situation are already unconsciously explicit in a "model structure," or that we Could ever make our situation completely explicit even if we tried.

Context

After presenting Minsky’s quantitative picture of knowledge, Dreyfus offers a phenomenological critique using the example of chairs and everyday situations to argue that human understanding is fundamentally contextual and implicit, not a list of explicit facts.