Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Jerry A. Fodor, Immanuel Kant and John P. Burgess

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26 ideas

18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 2. Categories of Understanding
Kant deduced the categories from our judgements, and then as preconditions of experience [Kant, by Houlgate]
Kant says we can describe the categories of thought, but Hegel claims to deduce them [Kant, by Meillassoux]
Categories are concepts that prescribe laws a priori to appearances [Kant]
Four groups of categories of concept: Quantity, Quality, Relation and Modality [Kant]
The categories are objectively valid, because they make experience possible [Kant]
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 3. Modularity of Mind
Modules have in-built specialist information [Fodor]
Mental modules are specialised, automatic, and isolated [Fodor, by Okasha]
Modules have encapsulation, inaccessibility, private concepts, innateness [Fodor]
Obvious modules are language and commonsense explanation [Fodor]
Something must take an overview of the modules [Fodor]
Modules make the world manageable [Fodor]
Babies talk in consistent patterns [Fodor]
Rationality rises above modules [Fodor]
Modules analyse stimuli, they don't tell you what to do [Fodor]
Blindness doesn't destroy spatial concepts [Fodor]
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 4. Language of Thought
Belief and desire are structured states, which need mentalese [Fodor]
Language is ambiguous, but thought isn't [Fodor]
Mentalese may also incorporate some natural language [Fodor]
Mentalese doesn't require a theory of meaning [Fodor]
Ambiguities in English are the classic reason for claiming that we don't think in English [Fodor]
Since the language of thought is the same for all, it must be something like logical form [Fodor, by Devlin]
We must have expressive power BEFORE we learn language [Fodor]
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 5. Mental Files
Mental representations name things in the world, but also files in our memory [Fodor]
We think in file names [Fodor]
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 6. Artificial Thought / a. Artificial Intelligence
Is thought a syntactic computation using representations? [Fodor, by Rey]
Frame Problem: how to eliminate most beliefs as irrelevant, without searching them? [Fodor]