Application: Predication and Commitment

The previous chapters have given us ways of thinking about how an AI system might use names and predicates. But language use involves more than simply tokening expressions. It also involves predicating, or asserting, or judging: applying predicates to terms to make a claim. How can AI do that, even granting it can name things and express predicates? This chapter proposes an answer, by melding together two popular theories: the act-theory of propositional content, and teleosemantics. In a now familiar way, it abstracts from human-centric features of extant theories to show how we can understand AI predication.