Key Arguments

• Dreyfus states that 'We have already seen examples which suggest that the situation might be of a radically different order and fulfill a totally different function than any concatenation of facts.'
• In the 'Marx' example, 'the situation (academic) determines how to disambiguate "Marx" (Karl) and furthermore tells us which facts are relevant to disambiguate "follows," as ideological or chronological.'
• In the 'box‑pen' example, while 'the size of the box and pen are clearly relevant since we are speaking of physical objects being "in" other physical objects', 'the situation, be it agricultural, domestic, or conspiratorial, determines the significance of the facts involved.'
• He generalizes: 'Thus it is our sense of the situation which enables us to select from the potential infinity of facts the immediately relevant ones, and once these relevant facts are found, enables us to estimate their significance.'
• From this he infers that 'unless there are some facts whose relevance and significance are invariant in all situationsand no one has come up with such factswe will have to give the computer a way of recognizing situations; otherwise, it will not be able to disambiguate and thus it will be, in principle, unable to understand utterances in a natural language.'

Source Quotes

Only if one rejects the ontological assumption that the world can be analyzed as a set of factsitems of informationcan one legitimately move beyond practical impossibility. We have already seen examples which suggest that the situation might be of a radically different order and fulfill a totally different function than any concatenation of facts. In the "Marx" example, the situation (academic) determines how to disambiguate "Marx" (Karl) and furthermore tells us which facts are relevant to disambiguate "follows," as ideological or chronological.

We have already seen examples which suggest that the situation might be of a radically different order and fulfill a totally different function than any concatenation of facts. In the "Marx" example, the situation (academic) determines how to disambiguate "Marx" (Karl) and furthermore tells us which facts are relevant to disambiguate "follows," as ideological or chronological. (When was the follower born, what are his political views, etc.?) In the box-pen example the size of the box and pen are clearly relevant since we are speaking of physical objects being "in" other physical objects; but here the situation, be it agricultural, domestic, or conspiratorial, determines the significance of the facts involved.

In the "Marx" example, the situation (academic) determines how to disambiguate "Marx" (Karl) and furthermore tells us which facts are relevant to disambiguate "follows," as ideological or chronological. (When was the follower born, what are his political views, etc.?) In the box-pen example the size of the box and pen are clearly relevant since we are speaking of physical objects being "in" other physical objects; but here the situation, be it agricultural, domestic, or conspiratorial, determines the significance of the facts involved. Thus it is our sense of the situation which enables us to select from the potential infinity of facts the immediately relevant ones, and once these relevant facts are found, enables us to estimate their significance.

(When was the follower born, what are his political views, etc.?) In the box-pen example the size of the box and pen are clearly relevant since we are speaking of physical objects being "in" other physical objects; but here the situation, be it agricultural, domestic, or conspiratorial, determines the significance of the facts involved. Thus it is our sense of the situation which enables us to select from the potential infinity of facts the immediately relevant ones, and once these relevant facts are found, enables us to estimate their significance. This suggests that unless there are some facts whose relevance and significance are invariant in all situationsand no one has come up with such factswe will have to give the computer a way of recognizing situations; otherwise, it will not be able to disambiguate and thus it will be, in principle, unable to understand utterances in a natural language.

Thus it is our sense of the situation which enables us to select from the potential infinity of facts the immediately relevant ones, and once these relevant facts are found, enables us to estimate their significance. This suggests that unless there are some facts whose relevance and significance are invariant in all situationsand no one has come up with such factswe will have to give the computer a way of recognizing situations; otherwise, it will not be able to disambiguate and thus it will be, in principle, unable to understand utterances in a natural language. Among workers in AI, only Joseph Weizenbaum seems to be aware of these problems.

Key Concepts

• the situation might be of a radically different order and fulfill a totally different function than any concatenation of facts.
• the situation (academic) determines how to disambiguate "Marx" (Karl) and furthermore tells us which facts are relevant to disambiguate "follows," as ideological or chronological.
• the situation, be it agricultural, domestic, or conspiratorial, determines the significance of the facts involved.
• Thus it is our sense of the situation which enables us to select from the potential infinity of facts the immediately relevant ones, and once these relevant facts are found, enables us to estimate their significance.
• we will have to give the computer a way of recognizing situations; otherwise, it will not be able to disambiguate and thus it will be, in principle, unable to understand utterances in a natural language.

Context

Near the end of this excerpt, Dreyfus articulates his positive phenomenological account of 'situation' as what grounds relevance and significance, and he draws out the implications for AI and machine understanding.