Why isn't my pocket calculator a thinking thing?

Abstract

What the preceding arguments show — I take it — is that none of the four traditional marks of the mental considered provide a supportable basis for denying that Cal calculates in the same sense as you or I; i.e., I have sought to show that our initial syllogism does not commit the fallacy of four terms by equivocating on ‘calculates’, its middle. I will conclude by remarking why the argument — at least as I intend it, and on its least tendentious reading — doesn't equivocate on its major, ‘thinks’, either. Ordinarily ‘think’ is a generic term for any of several different mental activities or states. According to Descartes, a thing that thinks is “a thing which doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions” (1642: 19). Similarly, my dictionary (Webster's New Collegiate), under ‘think’, mentions conceive, judge, consider, surmise, expect, determine, resolve, reason, intend, purpose, reflect, infer, opine, and decide. In this ordinary generic sense of the term, I take it, it's undeniable that calculating is thinking, and — if my arguments are sound — that my pocket calculator calculates and consequently thinks.