Rituparna Roy

Philosophy of language, since Wittgenstein, seems to be quite convinced that the idea that language ‘use’ and ‘understanding’ are closely related concepts. According to Wittgenstein, understanding is defined as following rules within a specific sociocultural framework. The majority of contemporary philosophers (Floridi 2023; Shanahan, McDonell, and Reynolds 2023; and Gahrn-Andersen 2025) believe that the functional design of LLMs, built on statistical patterns and symbolic representations, lacks sensory, social, and experiential groundings. Hence, they lack a true understanding, as they do not build the kinds of causal/common-sense models that humans do, nor do they share the life conditions or ‘form of life’ from which words derive their meaning. This paper shares their goal, settling that LLMs do not understand, but its motivation is innovative: it argues that, conceptually, LLMs can justifiably use language without understanding it. The use of words and the understanding/knowledge of them are independent activities and understanding arises from within, which is more fundamental than rule-following or sociocultural practices. But if meaning is a product of an inner faculty of the mind, the sign, by itself, does not generate meaning and is not a source of learning. Augustine (2004) grasped this profound philosophical issue that the Wittgensteinian tradition ignored. If we consider Augustine’s distinction between the instrumental use of signs and the understanding of meaning by the subjective mind, the latter being the very essence of language understanding. Hence, the conclusion is that LLMs are a technological simulation of that functional use of language, which is not related to knowledge and understanding.

Bio

Rituparna Roy is a visiting project fellow at the Institute of Philosophy of the University of Porto (Portugal) and is working with Prof. Silva, the principal investigator, on the project “Language and Knowledge: From Augustine to Contemporary Phenomenology”. Her expertise is in philosophy of mind and consciousness and proto-phenomenology. She also works on philosophy of language and Buddhist psychology. She did her PhD in the unity of consciousness at Jadavpur University, India. She previously worked as a guest researcher at the Center for Mind and Cognition, Ruhr-University Bochum, with Prof. Schlicht, the principal investigator. She presented several papers in both Europe and Asia at international conferences on the philosophy of mind, bringing together analytic and historical perspectives. One of her recent publications is “No Algorithm for Self-Awareness: On the Human Exclusivity of Awareness of Awareness”.