I want to block some common misunderstandings about 'understanding': In many of these discussions one finds a lot of fancy footwork about the word 'understanding.'

Where questions of style and exposition are concerned I try to follow a simple maxim: if you can't say it clearly you don't understand it yourself.

We often attribute ‘understanding’ and other cognitive predicates by metaphor and analogy to cars, adding machines, and other artifacts, but nothing is proved by such attributions.

Berkeley had a liberal element in the student body who tended to be quite active. I think that’s in general a feature of intellectually active places.

Our tools are extensions of our purposes, and so we find it natural to make metaphorical attributions of intentionality to them; but I take it no philosophical ice is cut by such examples.

My car and my adding machine understand nothing: they are not in that line of business.

In many cases it is a matter for decision and not a simple matter of fact whether x understands y; and so on.

Many people mistakenly suppose that the essence of consciousness is that of a control mechanism.

I will argue that in the literal sense the programmed computer understands what the car and the adding machine understand, namely, exactly nothing.

Where questions of style and exposition are concerned I try to follow a simple maxim: if you can’t say it clearly you don’t understand it yourself.