---
title: "How Can a Program Mean?"
authors:
  - "Donald Perlis"
doi: ""
url: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/1987/31"
pdf: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/1987/0031.pdf"
venue: "Proceedings of the Tenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence"
year: 1987
pages: "163-165"
track: "Cognitive Modeling"
keywords:
---

# How Can a Program Mean?

Donald Perlis

*Proceedings of the Tenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence*, pages 163-165.

## Abstract

This paper is about meaning, in the following sense: If a system employs symbols, in what sense are they symbolic, of what are they symbolic, and in what sense is it the ayatem that makes them symbolic? In other words, what does it take for a system to be such that the question "what do you mean by that?" can be appropriately asked it? We suggest an answer based on the idea of quotation or reification .