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

The general nature of the speech act fallacy can be stated as follows, using "good" as our example. Calling something good is characteristically praising or commending or recommending it, etc. But it is a fallacy to infer from this that the meaning of "good" is explained by saying it is used to perform the act of commendation.

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

The ascription of an unconscious intentional phenomenon to a system implies that the phenomenon is in principle accessible to consciousness.

Nowadays nobody bothers, and it is considered in slightly bad taste to even raise the question of God's existence. Matters of religion are like matters of sexual preference: they are not discussed in public, and even the abstract questions are discussed only by bores.

The assertion fallacy is the fallacy of confusing the conditions for the performance of the speech act of assertion with the analysis of the meaning of particular words occurring in certain assertions.

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.